Change Your Brain Every Day - How Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) React In The Brain

Episode Date: November 5, 2018

Sometimes the worst treatment you can face is the treatment your give yourself. When automatic negative thoughts pop into your head, it’s all too easy to believe them, which can set off a chain reaction of negativity. In this episode of The Brain Warrior’s Way Podcast, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen teach you the common types of negative thoughts we have, and how we can keep them from ruining our day.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. We're going to help you become a master anteater. You don't have to believe every stupid thing you think so important if you want to feel better fast I want you to carry around these three little words is it true but first you want to read a testimony I do so this is from hot stuff

something something from Canada hot stuff Hot stuff. Hot stuff something. Dr. Daniel Amen and Tiana Amen are my favorite people. That's why I chose this one, just because they said this. A little drip of dopamine. A little drip of dopamine. I love and admire them very deeply and was thrilled when I heard they were starting a podcast. They are a delight to listen to and their message about brain health is something that's so important to spread. Our society doesn't yet look at brain health as much as we should and recognize that it's a large factor in explaining our behavior and our problems. We recognize the other three circles that Daniel explains, which are the psychological, social, and spiritual components, and those are all very

important, but we often miss the biological component when we are trying to understand behavior. As Daniel puts it, our brain is the hardware of the soul. I love that. It's important to take care of our brain and body so that we can feel better, so we can better serve God while we are here. I got the message loud and clear. I hear you. I get you.

I love you guys so much. I recommend this podcast to anybody. It is great. Thank you so much. I love that. That just gave me goosebumps. I know. It's awesome, right? I wonder if goosebumps and dopamine go together. Probably. They so much. I love that. That just gave me goosebumps. I know. It's awesome, right?

I wonder if goosebumps and dopamine go together. Probably. They probably do. They probably do. So we're in our Feel Better Fast series, and no one has ever taught them how to discipline their mind. I mean, you can. I can drug your brain into submission. I'm actually pretty good at it.

But I don't want to just do that. I want you to learn the tools, the techniques, the little tiny habits, the smallest thing you can do today that will make the biggest difference. So in this podcast, we're actually going to talk about the ants, the ant species. So what are all the ways we mess ourselves up by the kinds of negative thoughts we have? So one of the things I want to say about as we go into this, and some of you are going, well, wait, you guys have done ants before. But you're going to do it slightly different, so stick with us. Stay with us through the series. Oh, no, people need to hear it over right so when I was doing uh when I listened to love and logic for Chloe um I was

having trouble with parenting and I ordered this um parenting program which literally changed my life with her my relationship and just has been amazing she's like which is why we've had them on the podcast many times oh my god I just I love that program but I literally for a year drove around with that program in my dvd player that tells how long it's been, but in my DVD player. And I listened to it nonstop for a year and just kept replaying it because it takes time for it to become habit, right? So I would do really well with her, and then when it started to not work, when she started to act up again, I would realize, oh, it's because I'm not integrating it right now.

So I would listen to it again. So you really do need to hear this. Right, And I think the reason I like doing it a lot is it helps me. It helps me not have negative thoughts. Because when you're trying to change the world, like we are, you get attacked and your thoughts can become distorted. And see one, do one, teach one. So what we're going to do now, and actually I wrote a kid's book about this called Captain Snout and the Superpower Questions.

And I'm so thinking with the political turmoil in this country that both sides are filled with ants. And these negative thoughts are driving you know they drive but it's very sad we have a drive negative behavior and so we have more in common so let's talk about the seven different kinds of ants yes and the first one is all-or-nothing ants that's where things are all good or all bad. And it's where we're like the historic party, political party, or you demonize people. And what I've learned through the brain imaging work that we do, the world is totally gray. Plus, on a test, so you know you're doing all or nothing thinking. Right.

Whenever you think in words like always, never, every time, everyone. And if you remember in college, whenever they asked you a test, this is always this way. 99% of the time. Just mark it false. Right. Right? Because there are just so very few absolutes in the world, except I absolutely love you. And if I mess up, you'll absolutely kill me.

Right, yes. Right? So those are absolutes. If that was on the test, I would go correct. You can mark that true. World's smallest handcuffs. She's pointing to my wedding ring. But whenever you have those thoughts, for example, Tana never listens to me. Complete nonsense. Is that true? Total and complete nonsense always. Right.

But when you have a thought, even if it's not true, like that one's not true. Right. When you have a thought, if you don't question it, you believe it 100% and then you act as if it's true. So those are all or nothing ants. And then we have the just the bad ant, where, and you see this totally in this political climate, they focus on one thing that may have happened 20 years ago, and they escalate the negative thing and exclude all the positive things.

Right, and both sides do it. And they forget the fact that we have more in common together than we don't. So it's just very annoying. But I work on this one a lot with people that I've coached, and it's like something really bad, truly horrible could happen to someone, but that person has played it over thousands of times in their mind. Right. And so, and this, this is hard to say to someone who's been traumatized, but the one who made me really help, who helped me with this was Byron Katie. When she said, okay, I understand that this thing happened to you.

It was terrible. This person did a terrible thing to you, but you've done it to you thousands of times. Right. By allowing yourself to replay it. People who've replayed the trauma over and over. And she looked at me and she said, who's worse to you?

Who's meaner to you? And I like, at first I was angry. And then I went, oh, wow, that's like powerful. I was being worse to myself. So it's a powerful thing because it puts you in control. It puts you in control. Another example of just the bad, if I gave a talk, so I was in Vancouver, Canada recently and talked to hundreds of people

and say, for example, someone up front fell asleep during my talk. Oh, this is powerful for me too. This happened to me. And so I get a standing ovation at the end. But my mind focuses on the one who fell asleep. I must be boring. And so where do you bring your attention? Do you bring your attention to the standing ovation

or do you bring the attention to the person that fell asleep, even though they may have been up the night before? Right, to get there to see you. Because they had a sick husband or they had a sick child. And that might be why they were up all night there to get to see you. But I have one that's great with this. So I was speaking one time, and this woman is in the front row, and I'm making eye contact with people,

and she was making me so nervous. She was actually, she was, like, disrupting me because she's giving me dirty looks. I mean, she's seriously dirty looks. You were allowing her to make you. Absolutely. So I was, like, feeling really, like, disturbed by it, and then finally I was getting, like, irritated.

So now I'm just like, okay, forget you. And I'm like, so I'm, like, giving it back to her a little bit so that I didn't get sort of, like, flustered. And so I'm just like, okay, forget you. And I'm like, so I'm like giving it back to her a little bit so that I didn't get sort of like flustered. And so I'm like, whatever. And so I'm like looking at everybody else and I'm like sort of annoyed with her, this whole thing. She's just like really like just glaring at me. And so I don't understand.

I'm like, what did I say that was so offensive to her? But it's always, the whole time it's playing in my head. So I just completely ignore her. She doesn't talk to me at the end. She contacts me after the event and was like, I completely loved everything you said. I need you to speak at my event. I was totally absorbed.

I was floored. That was just her way of paying attention. I was like, that taught me never, ever try to read people like that. Well, we're going to talk about mind reading. Right. And sometimes these ants get mixed up, right? They mate with other ants. Right. And you end up.

But you can't always read people. Nationality ants. Right. Guilt beatings. That is where you think in words like should, must, ought. I'm so good at shooting all over myself. You can't. No, I'm really good at it. You can't take that one away from me. But guilt is not very clear about what people should do. A helpful motivator. So I mean,

your mother went to Catholic school. I went to Catholic school. And she passed it on to me. And so I often tease people I had to pass guilt 101, guilt 102, advanced guilt. And then I realize it's not helpful. And then I realize, what was it? In the book of Genesis, God said you should not go to the tree of knowledge. And the first thing they did. The next C is at the tree of knowledge. And the first thing they did. They're at the tree of knowledge. And I'm like, no. What God should have said is if you go to the tree of knowledge,

we're kicking you out of the Garden of Eden. And you're going to die a painful death. And she is going to have to wear clothes. Seriously? Seriously, what is the matter with you? Because if he would have said that, when she tried to get him to do it, because she's the one that tempted him,

he's like, no, I'm not going to the tree. So should is not helpful. See, there is something seriously wrong with you. Oh, so many things. Why do you think I'm a psychiatrist, right? I'm fixing stuff constantly. But should isn't helpful because when you think you should do something, it makes you feel bad.

So you don't do it. So I want you to get rid of the words should and go, I want to. Well, your whole life you were programmed to rebel against your parents, against whatever, teachers, and so you instantly. And so many of my patients, their four-year-old selves. Right, exactly. Live, they're in control. Right.

Or the two-year-old self, which is no, no way, never, you can't make me do it. They're still running your life. So I just want you to replace should with, well, it's my goal. It fits what I want. So for example, if I think to myself, I should go see my mom and dad, um, you know, they're 86 and 89 and well, I won't see them because it makes me feel bad. But if I replace, I should go see them with I want to go see them with it fits my goal to have a close relationship with them. I don't know how much longer I'm going to have them.

I really want to spend time. Then in a heartbeat, I am there. So it's just changing how you think. And that's the same thing, you know, like with Chloe when, you know, she's 15. So she is better than, her attitude is better than 99% of 15-year-olds I know. But she's 15. So every now and then she gets this little snippiness or whatever. And I start to go back to my old ways of like, you know, yeah, no, cut it.

And I get like really frustrated. Because you have the should stuff. Well, and it just irritates me. So I get that really quick. Because of the shoulding all over yourself. Right. But now, because of a lot of work I've done, like a tremendous amount of work,

and listening to it over and over and over, I stop myself for a second. And I'm like, okay, if I say that, like, how is it going to help me? Does it fit the goal you have in your relationship with her? Right. We're like this. And she listens to what I say. And she, she respects what I say. She's not in trouble because we are close. Like how is that going to help? Your natural tendency without this training is you can be harsh. Oh, yeah.

Cut it off at the knees. And that's not who you really are. No. I don't want it with you. I don't want it with her. So this training has been so important. It has so decreased my stress. The next one is labeling.

That is where you label yourself or someone else with a negative term. He's a nerd. She's a brat. He's a jerk. I'm an idiot. Clown. And I grew up with this in my house. And now you're a Democrat or you're a Republican.

Well, I grew up with this in my house like 24-7 going on. You know, my stepfather was a redneck career military, and I would walk in. See, I just labeled him. But I would walk in the house, and this was going on from morning till night with the news, with his. We all label people. Psychiatrists do. So you grow up with it, and you carry it on. And you have to learn.

As a nurse in the ICU, what labels did you have for patients? Oh, well, we weren't allowed to, like, label them as far as we would get in trouble if we said anything about their backgrounds. But we did say things like they're gorked or they're vegetables. That was really bad. But we couldn't say anything about them as far as like I was in a Christian college. But as nurses, like behind the scenes. Oh, I went to Christian medical school. But when I got to Walter Reed, I mean, the labels they'd have for patients, you know, one was Gomer, get out of my emergency room.

Yeah, those types of things. Because whenever you label. But we had worse ones for psychiatrists. So just FYI. Like what? We didn't like the psychiatrists. Other than to get our vitamin H, which is held on when someone was climbing out of bed. So what labels did you have for?

We just thought you guys were insane, all of you. Well, there is some truth to that. Whenever you label someone, you lump them with all of the people you've ever known who have that label. And you can't deal with them individually. No, you demonize them. And that almost cost me my marriage because when Tana first found out I was a psychiatrist, she almost canceled her first date with me.

Right, I did, yeah. Because she didn't want to be analyzed, even though she desperately needed to be analyzed. And the truth is we're all analyzing. We're all constantly analyzing, right? We're all constantly judging, whether it's for discernment or whether it's because you're harshly. We're constantly labeling. Right.

But you have to catch yourself. Whether that homeless person is an alcoholic. Right. I'm not going to give them money to support their habit. And I like Pastor McPherson when he was on the show. He's like, look, it's not about, he's like, you're lying to yourself if you say that you're not racist or you're not judgmental. The goal is to recognize it and sort of transform it, right? It's not to say you're not because we all do it.

It's more to know you're doing it and turn it into something more positive and recognize it and do something with it that you can, that isn't harmful, right? I forget how he said it. You should listen to the podcast. It was beautiful. It was absolutely amazing how he said it. So when we come back, we're going to talk about a couple of other different kinds of ants and how to get rid of them. Stay with us. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of the Brain Warriors Way and the Brain Warriors Way cookbook

we give away every month.