Kill the ANTs That Invade Your Brain
The thoughts that go through your mind, moment by moment, have a significant impact on how your brain works. Research by Mark George, MD, and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health demonstrated that happy, hopeful thoughts had an overall calming effect on the brain, while negative thoughts inflamed brain areas often involved with depression and anxiety. Your thoughts matter.
I often teach my patients how to metaphorically kill the ANTs that invade their minds. ANTs stand for Automatic Negative Thoughts. The ANTs are automatic. They just happen. But they can ruin your whole day, maybe even your life.
For example, I once treated a college student who was ready to drop out of school. He thought he was stupid because didn't do well on tests. When his IQ (intelligence level) was tested, however, we discovered that he had an IQ of 135 (in the superior range). He just wasn't a good test taker.
I have identified nine different kinds of ANT species, or ways your thoughts can distort incoming information to make you feel bad. Here are four ANT species:
Mind reading - This is predicting you know that another person is thinking something negative about you without them telling you. I often tell my patients that, "A negative look from someone else may mean nothing more than he or she is constipated. You don't know. You can't read minds. I have 25 years of training in human behavior and I still can't read anyone's mind."
Fortune telling - This is predicting a bad outcome to a situation before it has occurred. Your mind makes happen what it sees. Unconsciously, predicting failure will often cause failure. For example, if you say, "I know I will fail the test," then you will likely not study hard enough and fail the test.
"Always" or "never" thinking - This is where you think in words like always, never, every time, or everyone. These thoughts are overgeneralizations which can alter behavior. For example, I have a friend who asked out an attractive woman. She turned him down. He told himself that no one will ever go out with him again. This ANT prevented him from asking out anyone else for over nine months.
Guilt beatings - This is being overrun by thoughts of "I should have done... I'm bad because.... I must do better at... I have to...). Guilt is powerful at making us feel bad. It is a lousy motivator of behavior.
You do not have to believe every thought that goes through your head. It's important to think about your thoughts to see if they help you or they hurt you. Unfortunately, if you never challenge your thoughts you just "believe them" as if they were true. ANTs can take over and infest your brain. Develop an internal anteater to hunt down and devour the negative thoughts that are ruining your life.
Once you learn about your thoughts, you can chose to think good thoughts and feel good or you can choose to think bad thoughts and feel lousy. You can train your thoughts to be positive and hopeful or you can just allow them to be negative and upset you.
That's right, it's up to you! You can learn how to change your thoughts and optimize your brain. One way to learn how to change your thoughts is to notice them when they are negative and talk back to them.
If you can correct negative thoughts, you take away their power over you. When you think a negative thought without challenging it, your mind believes it and your brain reacts to it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_____________________________________________________
Click here 
