Adapted from Daniel Amen Excerpts
Your thoughts are powerful. They can either help you or hurt you. Left unchecked, automatic negative thoughts – or ANTs – will act like an infection spreading throughout your whole body, impacting how you feel and behave.
Whenever you notice ANTs you need to destroy them right away or they will infect your life.
Step 1
Realize your thoughts are real. When you have a thought your brain releases chemicals. An electrical transmission goes across your brain and you become aware of what you are thinking.
Step 2
Notice how your body reacts to every thought you have. Negative thoughts can make your body feel tense and anxious with your heart beating faster. You may experience headaches, stomach aches, or feel tired and have no energy.
Positive thoughts can release chemicals that make your body feel relaxed and calm, or you may feel energized and ready to tackle the day.
Step 3
Think of bad thoughts as pollution. Negative thoughts pollute the brain’s limbic system, your mind and your body.
Step 4
Understand that your automatic thoughts don’t always tell the truth and sometimes they even lie to you. You need to think about and examine your thoughts. ANTs can ruin your relationships, your self-esteem and your personal power.
Step 5
Talk back to your ANTs and exterminate them. You can train yourself to choose good thoughts and to feel better, or to choose bad thoughts and feel lousy. One way to squash your ANTs is to notice them when they are negative. Write them down and talk back to them.
Think of the negative thoughts that invade your mind like ants that bother you at a picnic. One negative thought, like one ant at a picnic, is not a big problem. Two or three become more irritating, and when the ANTs begin to grow in number, squashing them gets hard and they may affect your relationships or your self-esteem. This is why it is so important to catch them right away and correct them so you can take away the power they have over you.
Nine Different Species of ANTs
“Always or Never” Thinking
Always, never, every one, no one, every time, nothing.
Focusing on the Negative
Only seeing the bad parts of a situation.
Fortune Telling
Predicting the worst case scenario.
Mind Reading
Believing you know what others are thinking without them telling you.
Thinking with Your Feelings
Believing feelings without questioning them.
Guilt Beatings
Thinking in terms of what you should have done, ought to have done.
Labeling
Giving yourself or someone else a negative label.
Personalization
Harless events are seen as personal in nature.
Blame
Blaming someone else for your problems.
