For example, if you are feeling nervous, emotional reasoning would lead you to conclude that you must be in danger. Emotional reasoning: This involves assuming that something is true based on your emotional response to it.Such statements are often unrealistic and cause people to feel defeated and pessimistic about their ability to succeed. "Should" statements: Thinking marked by "should" statements contribute to a negative perspective by only thinking in terms of what you "ought" to be doing.Someone who labels themselves as "bad at math," for example, will often feel negative about activities that involve that skill. Labeling: When people label themselves in a negative way, it affects how they feel about themselves in different contexts.This can make negative experiences seem unavoidable and contribute to feelings of anxiety. Overgeneralization: This pattern is marked by a tendency to apply what happened in one experience to all future experiences.Catastrophizing: This pattern of negative thinking is characterized by always assuming that the worst possible outcome will happen without considering more likely and realistic possibilities.Jumping to conclusions: This distortion involves making assumptions about what others are thinking or making negative assumptions about how events will turn out.Whenever you find yourself feeling mad, sad, nervous, or out-of-control, write down what you are thinking. So now that you have met some of the ANTs that rob you of your happiness and peace of mind, what do you do about them? This diminishes your ability to see situations clearly and labels are very harmful. LabelingĬalling yourself or someone else a derogatory name. Stay away from blaming thoughts and take personal responsibility for changing the problems you have. Many of us play the blame game, but it rarely helps us. Whenever you blame someone else for the problems in your life, you are a victim and you can’t do anything to change it. Telling yourself “I should go see my grandmother” rather than “I want to spend time with my grandmother” only serves to make you feel negative. Guilt is not a very good motivator for change. The words we use to talk to ourselves are very important. Thinking with words like should, must, ought and have to. It’s a major reason why people have trouble in relationships. Many people do this, and more often than not it gets them into trouble. Where you arbitrarily believe that you know what someone else is thinking, even though they didn’t tell you. They are masterful at predicting the worst, even though they don’t have any evidence. This is the ANT of almost anyone who has a panic disorder. Here are a few you need to learn to identify: Fortune Telling Just as there are a many species of ants in the world, there are different kinds of negative thought patterns (ANTs). So, if you want to eradicate depression, anxiety, and negativity from your life, you need to work on disciplining your mind to get rid of the ANTs and developing an ANTeater to patrol the streets of your mind. Your hands get warmer and dryer, your breathing becomes deeper and more regular, your muscles relax, your blood pressure decreases, and your brain works better. The opposite is also true – whenever you have a happy, hopeful, loving, kind, or positive thought, your brain releases a completely different set of chemicals. Additionally, the activity in your frontal and temporal lobes decreases which negatively affects your judgment, learning, memory. Your hands get cold and wet, your muscles get tense, your heart beats faster, and your breathing becomes shallower. He started teaching patients how to eliminate all of the ANTs because they are what drive depression, what stoke anxiety, and what fuel negativity.Įvery single time you have a thought, your brain releases chemicals.Įvery time you have a sad, hopeless, mad, cranky, unkind, judgmental, or helpless thought, your brain immediately releases chemicals that make your body feel awful. He thought of his patients from that day – just like the infested kitchen, his patients’ brains were also infested by Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) that were robbing them of their joy and stealing their happiness. As he started to clean them up, an acronym developed in his mind. When he got home that evening he found thousands of ants in his kitchen. Daniel Amen coined this term in the early 1990’s after a hard day at the office, during which he had several very difficult sessions with suicidal patients, teenagers in turmoil, and a married couple who hated each other. Then you need to become an expert about “ANTs.”ĭr. Would you like to reverse depression, anxiety, or negativity in your life? Would you like to experience peace of mind and joy?
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