Perseverative cognition is that the repeated or chronic activation of the cognitive representation of one or more psychological stressors. Stress is a systemic non-specific adaptive response induced by various internal and external environmental stimuli. Although stress response is an adaptive response help us face the ever-changed ecological demands, the prolonged stress response before and after the stressful event is harmful to our health. Perseverative cognition is an essential factor that causes a prolonged stress response，it usually consist of two types: explicit and implicit. The perseverative cognition can be measured by heart rate variability (HRV) and scales, and can also be induced in the laboratory through standardized procedures. Perseverative cognition can be thought of as a mediator or a pathway by which the stressor exercises its effects on the physical and psychological healthy. The relationship between perseverative cognition and our healthy can be explained in two ways. Firstly, some study found that perseverative cognition plays an important role in the stress–disease process. Both explicit perseverative cognition and implicit perseverative cognition have a negative impact on physical healthy. Secondly, perseverative cognition is regarded as one of the most critical influences on psychological healthy. Some cognitive processes is seriously damaged by perseverative cognition, such as working memory, emotion regulation etc. Previous studies have shown that the critical cognitive mechanism of perseverative cognition is that people cannot recognize safety signals in the environment, which leads to a prolonged stress response. People can actively inhibit stress response when they confirm that safety has been established. While those who fail to recognize a safety signal make undifferentiated stress responses to the threat and neutral stimuli. Perseverative cognition interferes with the recognition of the safety signals, leading to prolonged stress response. This process is associated with brain areas that monitor for potential threats, including the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate gyrus, and the amygdala. The prefrontal cortex monitors external threats, and lift the inhibition of the stress response when external threats are recognized. Perseverative cognition leads to the dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex, people fails to inhibit the stress response in the absence of an apparent threat stimulus. After the stress response and perseverative cognition last for an extended period, the more focal problem is the pathological changes of the brain, such as the larger volume of core Central Autonomic Network (CAN) regions and the weaker connection between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex. The evidence reviewed in the current article suggests that future research needs to systematically investigate the critical influencing factors of perseverative cognition. At the same time, we should focus on the intervention methods of perseverative cognition. The early action on perseverative cognition intervening has not reached the clinical level. Last but not least, we need pay more attention to implicit perseverative cognition. For example, we can adopt a more new research paradigm and cognitive neuroscience technique to explore it. There were pieces of evidence that the implicit perseverative cognition is associated with the impairment of the physical and physiological recovery at night. Those studies, however, failed to demonstrate the harmful effect of the implicit perseverative cognition on the physical and physiological health.