Write down five things you’re grateful for every day. Spend at least 20 minutes a day on this refueling, life-changing exercise, and you may find that your thoughts and outlook are more positive. If it’s the beach, visualize the ocean, feel the sand between your toes, and the warm sun on your skin. Such Loving Kindness Meditations can help reduce pain and improve other mental health concerns.Ĭhoose a haven – a place where you feel comfortable and that you can imagine with all your senses. Repeating simple words like “May I be safe and secure” can increase positive thoughts and emotions and decrease negative ones. Spending just 15 minutes alone, without distractions, may help clear your mind and provide benefits for both your physical and mental health. Writing in your journal 10 minutes before you go to bed can help release the stresses of the day and put you in a restful state of mind. Once those thoughts have been expressed, they often lose their intensity and urgency, which will allow you to mentally relax. The process of journaling gives stressful or negative thoughts another place they can live besides your brain. Your daily health routine is one of the best things you can do to help your overall wellness. Practice good self-care with brain-healthy habits such as exercising, maintaining a healthy diet, meditating, getting good sleep, and challenging negative thoughts. Here are some of the best strategies for retraining the way you think… 5 of the Best Ways to Avoid Automatic Negative Thoughts Talk back to the ANT – this takes away its power so you can gain control over your mood and feel better.Īfter exterminating your ANTs, it’s important to get into a regular habit of challenging negative thoughts and focusing on positive ones.When an ANT enters your mind, train yourself to recognize its type and write it down.Use these 2 helpful tips to exterminate your ANTs: Whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or stressed, write down what you’re thinking and then exterminate that ANT. It’s vitally important to exterminate the ANTs that can steal your happiness. Having cleared your mind of negative thoughts, you should feel more positive and better able to meet life’s challenges soon after completing this exercise. Then ask these 4 questions to challenge the ANTs. Whenever an ANT enters your mind, write it down. Who would I be without that thought? Or, how would I feel if I didn’t have that thought?.How do I react when I think that thought?.Amen recommends writing down any bothersome, worrisome, or negative thoughts, then challenging your ANTs by asking these 4 questions: Blame – Blaming someone else for your problems.īased on a method developed by bestselling author and speaker Byron Katie, called the Work, Dr.Labeling – Attaching a negative label to yourself or someone else.Guilt Beatings – Thinking in words like should, must, ought, or have to.Thinking with Your Feelings – Believing negative feelings without questioning them.Mind Reading – Believing that you know what another person is thinking even though they haven’t told you.Fortune Telling – Predicting the worst possible outcome to a situation with little or no evidence for it.Focusing on the Negative – Only seeing the bad in a situation.“Always” Thinking – Thinking in words like always, never, no one, everyone, every time, everything.“ All or Nothing ” Thinking – Thoughts that are all good or all bad.Types of ANTsĪNTs generally fall into one of these nine categories: The opposite is also true – positive, happy, hopeful thoughts release chemicals that can help you feel good. Daniel Amen, automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) can cause your brain to release chemicals able to negatively affect every cell in your body and make you feel bad. Automatic Negative ThoughtsĪ term coined by Dr. This pattern of negative thinking can initiate a downward spiral of mood and behavioral issues, which can have a detrimental effect on your job, relationships, and every area of your life. Negative thinking can effectively rewrite your brain’s neural networks, reinforcing pathways that make it more likely you’ll continue seeing the glass as half empty.Īdditionally, having negative thoughts can reduce activity in the area of the brain involved with self-control, judgment, and planning, which can lead to poor decisions. When left unchecked, negative thinking can distort perceptions of reality. Habitual, negative self-talk can train the brain to see things pessimistically. Embracing positive, accurate thoughts can help you make better choices, which can lead to improved mental and physical health. When you have a positive thought or feel happy, the stress hormone cortisol decreases and the brain produces the neurotransmitter serotonin, which creates a feeling of well-being. They can have a profound effect on the way you feel, behave, and interact with others.
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