Automatic negative thoughts how to#

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.

Automatic negative thoughts how to#

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? Hormone Evaluation and Replacement Therapy.Marital Conflict and Relationship Issues.