Change Your Brain Every Day - Three Quick Steps to Block Negative Thinking

Episode Date: December 22, 2016

In today's episode, we're going to talk about the three steps on how you can block and eliminate those negative thoughts. Some simple tips to make sure you don't dwell on those negative thoughts but replace it with something positive and useful for your brain.

Hi, I'm Donnie Osmond, and welcome to The Brain Warrior's Way, hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amon. Now, in this podcast, you're going to learn that the war for your health is one between your ears. That's right. If you're ready to be sharper and have better memory, mood, energy, and focus, well then stay with us. Here are Daniel and Tana Amen.

So today, we're going to help you kill the ants or the automatic negative thoughts that steal your happiness and ruin your mind. This is one of my favorite activities and exercises because it's so simple and so powerful. And they should have taught you this in second grade. You know, I think about when I, you know, I love Paul Simon's song Kodachrome. It starts off with when I think back on all the crap I learned in high school. It's a wonder I can think at all.

And the first thing is teach you how to manage your mind. So I came up with the term ants. After seeing eight people one day, I had couples who hated each other, suicidal teenagers, people who were, you know, in domestic violence situations. I went home completely worn out and had an ant infestation in my house. And as I was cleaning up the thousands of ants, you know, when you go through medical school, you're always thinking of mnemonics or, you know, ways to remember things. And so you'd take the first letter of each term and put them together. And as I'm cleaning up the ants, I'm thinking to myself, automatic negative thoughts. As I had this infestation at home, my patients that day were infested. Their thoughts were infesting and ruining their minds.

Well, and what I think is so interesting, you know, as parents, we don't like it when our kids talk back to us when they're misbehaving, when they're doing all these things. And we feel like it's our job to discipline them, correct? We feel like it's our job to teach them to be responsible, to teach them to be disciplined. Yet we have these inner children, we have our inner child who is temperamental, throwing temper tantrums out of control, undisciplined, and we don't do anything about it. We let them ruin our day. We let them just destroy our lives. So I think of this as disciplining your inner child. So what I did after the ant infestation is I actually brought a can of ant spray to work. And I put it on my coffee table and I started talking to people about how to get rid of the bad thoughts.

Now, ultimately, I got rid of the ant spray and replaced it with an anteater, which I actually thought was a little bit kinder. Right. Recycling the circle of life. And one of my first patients I did this with was an eight-year-old boy who had a panic disorder. And just listening to his thoughts, they were so awful. And as I taught him how to get rid of the ants, he got so much better. And three weeks later, he came to my office and said it is an ant ghost town in I love that. In my head. So let's just quickly teach people how to do this. Right.

Whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or out of control, we want you to write down what you're thinking. So, for example, if we're having a hard time, which is rare, but I might think to myself, Tana never listens to me. And so- Now see, if I wasn't listening to you, I could not talk back to you as much as I do. And so left uninvestigated, that's a very toxic thought. And most people don't know that whenever you have a thought, your brain releases chemicals. Whenever you have a happy thought, a hopeful thought, a loving thought, your brain releases a set of chemicals that actually calms down your body.

There's another problem with that. When you have those thoughts, especially if they're not true, but whether they're true or not, your brain automatically looks for evidence to make it true. So even if it's not true, your brain's going to look for evidence of why that is true. So it changes the chemistry in your body and the focus of your brain. Now, whenever you have a mad thought, a sad thought, a hopeless or helpless thought, your brain releases a completely different set of chemicals that makes you feel angry, sad, stressed. And so really, it's, you know, where you bring your attention determines how you feel angry, sad, stressed. And so really it's, it's, you know, where you bring your attention determines how you feel. And this isn't, this isn't complicated. I mean, just, you can ask your child. So when they get excited, you tell them you're going to Disneyland. I mean, what,

how do they feel? They feel so excited. They're happy. That's a chemical reaction. You tell them they're going to their room and you're not going to Disneyland because they did something wrong. The tears, the screaming, you know, I mean, they don't feel good. They get tantrums and you will throw tantrums as well. So, again, back to our example, chemical reaction. It's very obvious what happens. Right. So if we go back to the example, you never listen to me. Left uninvestigated.

I believe it. And then because I believe it, I act as if it's true, which would make me either ignore you or get irritated with you. And then so the lie, it can actually ruin what could be, what is very special. Right. Because you're now going to behave based on something you're thinking that may not be accurate. Right. And it can ruin how you feel, but it can also ruin really important relationships for you. And brand new study just out last week, when people focus on negativity, their memory goes to hell. Isn't that interesting? So if you focus on what you love about your life, your brain actually works better. Wait, I can't watch the news anymore? Oh my goodness.

I can't scream at the TV in the morning? This is like a whole issue between us and the news. You know, I call CNN the crisis news network. They know that people pay attention to fearful thoughts more than they pay attention to healthy thoughts or happy thoughts because our brain, because of evolution, is wired to pay attention to what might hurt you, what might scare you. And the news actually knows that. And so you will see nine out of 10 stories to be awful and negative and somebody's being beheaded and so on. But if you keep that on and you keep focused on those negative thoughts, you're going to be anxious, stressed, and

depressed. So the exercise is this. Whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or out of control, write down what you're thinking. We actually have a high school course in 42 states and seven countries. And I'm just amazed that ninth graders who take the course, no one's ever taught them how to manage their thoughts. So write them down. And then all you do is you ask yourself whether or not they're true. And then you talk back to them. So I go, Tana never listens to me. So I'll write that down and I'll go, is that true? Absolutely not. She listens to me all the time.

Just think how many scripts I have listened to. So out of our nine PBS shows, she's listened to them repeatedly. Over and over. Because I want them to do well. But if I think she never listens to me and then I go, well, is that true? It's like, no, that's not true. So I can discard the thought. But if I don't challenge and discard it, I then sort of act like a jerk toward her, which

makes it more likely she'll never listen. Do you have an example? I do. I have a really good example, actually. So our 11-year-old. So I'm divorced. And so my daughter, when she was very young, you met I met you when Chloe was two years old. And so it's very special. And she fell in love. Yes. So they're very bonded. And there was a time where

I wasn't getting along with my ex-husband. Fortunately, now we're friends and we get along great. But there was a time where I was not. And so I'm being very vulnerable right here in this moment. But it was really difficult and there was a time where Chloe, when she was going through a really tough age, she was like four years old and she was having these strong-willed moments and temper tantrums and all sorts of things.

I was getting very frustrated with her. It was just a difficult age and I was trying to figure out how to really manage her and parent her in an effective way. And I one day just sort of lost my cool. And internally, thank God I didn't say it out loud, but internally I got so frustrated and the thought popped in my head, you're just like your dad. And I realized how toxic it was. Now this is, I feel like I'm just really exposing

myself right now, but I hated myself for that feeling, for feeling that way. Thinking that thought. Right. For thinking the thought and the feelings that came with it. I had some pretty heavy feelings along with that thought because I thought, here's this amazing person, this little kid, and I'm behaving toward her, you know, like toward someone that I don't really like at the moment. So I took her to school and I realized I had to do something. I actually spent like two hours on that that day because I knew it was something important. I wrote it down. I challenged the thoughts. And then the really important turnaround for me at the end was I actually turned it around to its

opposite. So you take the question and you turn it around. You're just like your father. Well, what's the opposite of that? You're just like me. So, and when I really, oh, she's just like me. And when I really thought about, so there were two turnarounds, two very important turnarounds. You're not just like your father. Well, the truth is she is like him in a lot of ways, but she's got a lot of his amazing qualities. So I listed the qualities where she's amazingly like him that are really good. I also listed where she's not like him, but then I really dug in where she's like me. And that's where we actually clash. Mostly where we clash isn't where she's like him. It's because we're both very strong-willed

and intense. And see how important it is to kill the thought? Otherwise, that is an extremely toxic thought. It was very toxic. That as a psychiatrist, I've seen many parents, you know, they get that thought about their child, and now all of a sudden they're acting in a very toxic, negative way. So now we just had about 10,000 people unsubscribe because of that story. But it's true. It's powerful. That's totally not true. You know, people become vulnerable.

And then people can relate to you because now you're like them as opposed to me, who's perfect. Okay, that's your aunt for the day. Anyways, what we want for you is aunt-free living. Whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or out of control, write down what you're thinking and challenge it. And if it's not helpful for you, talk back to her. Thanks for listening to today's show, The Brain Warrior's Way. Why don't you head over to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. That's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, where's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, where Daniel and Tana have a gift for you just for subscribing to the show.

And when you post your review on iTunes, you'll be entered into a drawing where you can win a VIP visit to one of the Amen clinics. I'm Donnie Osmond, and I invite you to step up your brain game by joining us in the next episode.