CHAPTER 5
MASTER YOUR RATIONAL MIND
HOW TO FEEL HAPPY AND PRESENT, WHILE CONQUERING WORRY AND NEGATIVITY
A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but the attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years.
BYRON KATIE, LOVING WHAT IS: FOUR QUESTIONS THAT CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Dark thoughts in the mind are not “you,” but are false messages from the brain. And because you are not your brain, you don’t have to listen to them.
JEFFREY M. SCHWARTZ, MD, AUTHOR OF YOU ARE NOT YOUR BRAIN
Developing the habit of accurate, honest, and disciplined thinking is essential to feeling better fast and making it last. This is not positive thinking, which can actually inhibit feeling better over the long run. As I have noted before, people who live by the philosophy “Don’t worry; be happy” die the earliest from accidents and preventable illnesses. Believing the future will be favorable without following a plan and putting in consistent effort can prevent people from taking the actions that will likely make that belief a reality.[124] This chapter will help you develop the mental discipline necessary for success, including eliminating the ANTs (automatic negative thoughts), quieting your mind, having an appropriate level of anxiety, and focusing on gratitude.
The human attention span is eight seconds, according to a 2015 study from Microsoft.[125] A goldfish’s attention span has been estimated at nine seconds. Human development seems to be going the wrong way. With modern technology stealing our attention span and directing our minds to the will of corporate America, disciplining the habits of our moment-by-moment thoughts is an essential skill for achieving happiness and purpose. Our gadget addiction is feeding an old tendency of the human brain to be scattered, unfocused, and controlled by negativity and fear. Plus, it is making us feel worse.[126] People who have the most screen time (TV, texting, video games) have a higher incidence of feeling unhappy.
Monkey mind is a term that describes a mind that is unsettled, restless, indecisive, and uncontrollable. Monkey mind was described by Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) in the sixth century BC, but it applies today more than ever. He said, “Just as a monkey swinging through the trees grabs one branch and lets it go only to seize another, so, too, that which is called thought, mind, or consciousness arises and disappears continually both day and night.”
Thoughts that you allow to circle again and again in your mind build ruts or roads in the brain, making the thoughts more likely to dominate and control your life. Fortunately, as we’ve seen in the last few chapters, the brain can change. You can rebuild these neural network highways in a more productive way with focused effort.
MARCUS: TOO MANY NEGATIVE THOUGHTS
About 10 years ago, the parents of 14-year-old Marcus brought him to see me because he was struggling with schoolwork and with his temper. At his previous school, Marcus “barely had to try” to get good grades; but after moving to a new school for the athletics, he found the more academically rigorous program challenging, and his grades declined. He had trouble focusing, was easily distracted, procrastinated, and took longer to complete assignments than ever before. A prior psychiatrist diagnosed him with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but the stimulant medications Ritalin and Adderall made him angry and more depressed, and for the first time he started to complain of suicidal thoughts. His SPECT scan revealed that his brain worked too hard, especially in the front, which was not consistent with a classic ADHD pattern. In research my team has published, we’ve seen that this pattern actually predicts a negative response to stimulant medications.
When I met Marcus, it was clear he struggled with many negative thoughts. He repeatedly referred to himself as stupid, and during our first session he told me,
“I hate school.”
“I can never be as good as other kids.”
“I’m a terrible person.”
“I should try harder.”
“I’m an idiot.”
“I am a failure.”
“My teachers hate me.”
“It’s my parents’ fault for not letting me quit.”
His thinking was in a rut. The highways in his brain were headed straight toward negativity, failure, and depression. When I showed Marcus his brain scan and compared it to a Ferrari whose engine was revved too high, he smiled, saying he liked that comparison. To help Marcus get control over his mind, I spent the next two months teaching him the six principles of disciplined thinking that we all should have learned in school.
Disciplined Thinking Principle #1: Every time you have a thought, your brain releases chemicals.
That’s how your brain works. You have a thought, your brain releases chemicals, electrical transmissions travel throughout your brain, and you become aware of what you’re thinking. Thoughts are real, and they have a powerful impact on how you feel and behave. Just as a muscle that’s exercised becomes stronger, repeatedly thinking the same thoughts makes them stronger too.
Every time you have an angry, unkind, hopeless, helpless, worthless, sad, or irritating thought, such as I’m stupid, your brain releases chemicals that make you feel bad. In this way, your body reacts to every negative thought you have. Marcus was exercising his brain to feel depression, sadness, and failure. I asked him to think about the last time he was mad. How did his body feel? When most people are angry, their muscles become tense, their hearts beat faster, their hands start to sweat, and they may even begin to feel a little dizzy. Marcus told me he got dizzy and sweaty and felt confused and stupid.
Similarly, every time you have a happy, hopeful, kind, optimistic, positive thought, your brain releases chemicals that make you feel good. I asked Marcus to think about the last time he had a happy thought. How did he feel inside his body? When most people are happy, their muscles relax, their hearts beat more slowly, their hands become dry, and they breathe more evenly. Marcus told me about an outing with his father, where they went fishing and had a great time. When he thought about it, he said he felt peaceful and happy. He didn’t feel stupid.
Disciplined Thinking Principle #2: Thoughts are powerful, and your body reacts to every single one you have.
Thoughts can make your mind and body feel good, or they can make you feel bad. Every cell in your body is affected by every thought you have. We know this from polygraph, or lie detector, tests. During a polygraph, a person is connected to instruments that measure
- hand temperature
- heart rate
- blood pressure
- breathing rate
- muscle tension
- sweat gland activity
The tester then asks questions, such as “Did you do that misdeed?” Almost immediately, the tested person’s body reacts to every thought he has, whether he says anything or not. If the person did it and worries he’ll be found out, his body is likely to have a stress response and react in the following ways:
- hand temperature drops
- heart rate speeds up
- blood pressure increases
- breathing rate increases, but breaths are more shallow
- muscle tension increases
- sweat gland activity increases
The opposite is also true. If he did not do the deed, his body will experience a relaxation response and react in the following ways:
- hand temperature increases
- heart rate slows
- blood pressure decreases
- breathing rate decreases and breaths become deeper
- muscle tension decreases
- sweat gland activity decreases
Again, your body reacts almost immediately to what you think —and not just when you’re asked about telling the truth. Your body reacts to every thought you have, whether it is about work, friends, family, or anything else. This is why when people become upset, they often develop physical symptoms, such as headaches, stomachaches, or diarrhea, or they become more susceptible to illness. Imagine what was happening in Marcus’s young body as his mind was flooded with negative thoughts.
At Amen Clinics we have biofeedback equipment that measures the same physiological responses as polygraphs: hand temperature, heart rate, breathing rate, muscle tension, and sweat gland activity (see chapter 1, page 10). I hooked up Marcus to our equipment. When I asked him about baseball (a sport he loved), his baby sister, and his friends, his body showed an immediate relaxation response. Yet when I asked him about school, feeling stupid, or his history teacher (with whom he was having a particularly hard time), his hands immediately got colder, his heart rate and muscle tension increased, his breathing rate became disorganized, and his hands started to sweat more. Marcus and his mother were amazed to see the evidence of how his body responded to every thought he had.
I taught Marcus to think of his body as an “ecosystem” that contains everything in the environment, such as air, water, land, cars, people, animals, vegetation, houses, landfills, and more. A negative thought was like pollution to his whole system. Just as pollution in Los Angeles or Beijing affects everyone who goes outdoors, so, too, do negative thoughts pollute your mind and your body.
Disciplined Thinking Principle #3: Your thoughts are hardwired to be negative.
In generations past, negative thoughts protected us from early death or becoming supper for powerful animals. From our earliest times on earth, being aware of and avoiding danger was crucial to survival. Unfortunately, even when the world became safer, negativity bias remained in our brains. Researchers have demonstrated that negative experiences have a greater impact on the brain than positive ones.[127] People pay more attention to negative than to positive news, which is why news outlets typically lead broadcasts with floods, murders, political disasters, and all forms of mayhem. According to research from the content marketing website Outbrain.com, in two periods of 2012 the average click-through rate on headlines with negative adjectives was an astounding 63 percent higher than for headlines with positive ones.[128] A negative perspective is more contagious than a positive one, which may be why political campaigns typically go negative at the end. Even our language is not exempt: 62 percent of the words in the English dictionary connote negative emotions, while 32 percent express positive ones.[129]
Psychologist and author Rick Hanson has written that the brain is wired for negativity bias. Bad news is quickly stored in the brain to keep us safe, but positive experiences have to be held in consciousness for more than 12 seconds before they stay with us. “The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones,” Hanson wrote.[130] Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, suggested that without other thoughts to occupy us, our brains will always return to worry. The only way to escape this is to focus on what will bring “flow” —activities that increase our sense of purpose and achievement.
Negative emotions “trump” positive emotions, which is why it is critical to discipline our natural tendency toward the negative and amplify more helpful thoughts and emotions. I taught Marcus that his negative thought pattern was common but not helpful.
Disciplined Thinking Principle #4: Thoughts are automatic and often lie.
Thoughts are based on complex chemical reactions in the brain; memories from the past; the quality of our sleep, hormones, and blood sugar; and many other factors. They are automatic, reflexive, random, and overwhelmingly negative. Plus, they are often erroneous. Unless disciplined and bridled, they will lie to you and wreak havoc in your life. Marcus thought he was stupid. He told himself so multiple times a day because he had trouble staying focused and didn’t perform well on tests. Yet when we tested him, his IQ was 135 —in the top one percent of all people. I told him it was critical to question every stupid thought that went through his head.
It’s important to examine your thoughts to see if they are true and if they are helping you or hurting you. Unfortunately, if you never challenge your thoughts, you will simply believe them and then act out of that erroneous belief. If, for example, I thought, My wife never listens to me, I’d feel lonely, mad, and sad. I would give myself permission to be rude to her or ignore her. My reaction to the lie I was telling myself could cause a negative spiral in my marriage, which could then literally ruin the rest of my life.
By repeatedly allowing his undisciplined thoughts to invade his mind, telling himself he was stupid, a failure, and a terrible person who hated school and was hated by his teachers, Marcus was more likely to behave in ways that would make those terrible things happen. I told him that his brain makes happen what it sees, which is why it is critical to get control over your thoughts.
Disciplined Thinking Principle #5: You can learn to eliminate the ANTs, or automatic negative thoughts, that steal your happiness.
I coined the term ANTs in the early 1990s after a hard day at the office, where I had seen four suicidal patients, two teens who had run away from home, and two couples who hated each other. That evening, when I arrived home and walked into the kitchen, I was greeted by an ant infestation. There were thousands of the pesky invaders marching in lines on the floor and crawling in the sink, on the countertops, and in the cabinets. Construction in our neighborhood had disturbed the earth, and the ants were looking for a new residence. As I wetted paper towels and began wiping up the horde of ants, the acronym ANT came to me —Automatic Negative Thought. Acronyms had been part of my life since medical school, helping me remember the 50,000 new terms I was learning. As I thought about my patients that day, I realized that, just like my kitchen, they were also infested with ANTs that were robbing them of their joy and stealing their happiness. A bizarre image came to me of ANTs crawling on top of their heads and out of their eyes, noses, and ears. The ANTs were setting up residence inside my patients’ minds. The next day, I brought a can of ant spray to work and placed it on my coffee table. As I started to talk about the concept with patients, they understood it right away.
ANTs are thoughts that pop into your mind uninvited. They make you feel mad, sad, worried, or upset. And most of the time they’re not even true!
Learning how to direct, question, and correct your automatic negative thoughts is not a new concept. Two of my favorite New Testament verses from the apostle Paul are Philippians 4:8 (“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable —if anything is excellent or praiseworthy —think about such things”) and Romans 12:2 (“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind”). Even 2,000 years ago, Paul taught about the benefits of filling our minds with what is good and positive. And more recently, in the 1960s, psychiatrist Aaron Beck formalized a school of psychotherapy called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is a structured way to teach patients to challenge and eliminate negative thoughts.
As the discussions about ANTs in my office continued, I replaced the can of ant spray with a black ant puppet and an adorable, furry anteater puppet. I then developed a simple exercise to help my patients eliminate the ANTs: Whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or out of control, write down your automatic negative thoughts. The act of writing down the ANTs helps to get the invaders out of your head. People loved the concept and found it easy to follow. Early on, I taught ANT therapy to a nine-year-old boy who suffered with debilitating anxiety and depression. After several weeks he told me he was feeling much better. He said, “It’s an ANT ghost town in my head.” In 2017, I published a children’s book, Captain Snout and the Super Power Questions: Don’t Let the ANTs Steal Your Happiness, that explains the therapy to kids.
Think of automatic negative thoughts as you would the ants that might bother a couple at a romantic picnic. One negative thought, like one ant at a picnic, is not a big problem. Two or three automatic negative thoughts, like two or three ants at a picnic, become a bit more irritating. Twenty or thirty automatic negative thoughts, like twenty or thirty ants at a picnic, may cause the couple to pick up and leave. The more you allow the ANTs to stick around in your head, the more they will “mate” with other ANTs and produce offspring that drive school failure, anxiety, depression, anger, work strife, relationship turmoil, and even obesity.
You can learn to eliminate the automatic negative thoughts and replace them with more helpful thoughts that give you a more accurate, fair assessment of any situation. It’s not positive thinking that ignores reality; instead, I advocate accurate, honest thinking. This skill alone can completely change your life if you embrace and practice it.
With a bit of practice, you can choose to think helpful thoughts and feel good, or you can choose to think toxic thoughts and feel lousy. It’s up to you! One way to begin is to notice your thoughts when they are negative, write them down, and talk back to them. If you can correct negative thoughts, you take away their power. When you have a negative thought without challenging it, your mind believes it and your body reacts to it.
Whenever you notice these ANTs, you need to crush them, or they’ll ruin your relationships, your self-esteem, and your personal power.
Disciplined Thinking Principle #6: You can fight back against the seven different ANT species.
Over the years therapists have identified seven different types of negative thought patterns that keep your mind off balance. I think of these as “species” of ANTs. They go by various names, but these are the ones I like to use:
- All-or-Nothing ANTs
- Just the Bad ANTs
- Guilt-Beating ANTs
- Labeling ANTs
- Fortune-Teller ANTs
- Mind Reader ANTs
- Blaming ANTs
- All-or-Nothing ANTs. These sneaky ANTs make you feel sorry for yourself. They don’t use words like sometimes or maybe. All-or-Nothing ANTs think in absolutes —words like all, always, never, none, nothing, no one, everyone, and every time.
I once met a woman on one of my tours for public television who told me she hated the gym so much that she would never exercise. I asked her, “Do you like to dance?” She replied, “Oh, I love to dance.” “How about taking a walk on the beach?” I asked. “I like that too,” she said. When I told her that dancing and walking on the beach are forms of exercise, she gave me a puzzled look. She had always equated “exercise” with the gym. When she realized that any type of physical activity qualified as exercise, she said, “Maybe I don’t hate to exercise; maybe I just hate the gym.”
This is an example of all-or-nothing thinking, when you believe that everything is either all good or all bad. It is the same as black-and-white thinking. When Marcus told me, “I can never be as good as other kids,” that was an example of an All-or-Nothing ANT. When I asked if he was 100 percent sure he could never be as good as the other kids, he gave me several examples of areas in which he excelled. Questioning the ANTs helps to send them packing.
Here are a few more examples of All-or-Nothing ANTs:
We had an argument. I think it’s over.
My child isn’t doing well at school. I’ve failed as a parent.
One of my favorite employees just quit; I am an awful supervisor.
I have always been fat; it will never change.
Every time I try to exercise, I get injured.
She’s always in a bad mood.
No one ever listens to me.
I don’t like any of the foods that are good for me.
- Just the Bad ANTs. This ANT can’t see anything good! Its beady eyes zoom in on mistakes and problems, and it fills your head with failure, frustration, sadness, and fear. As discussed above, the brain is wired for negativity, and this ANT can take virtually any positive experience and taint it with negativity. It is the judge, jury, and executioner of new experiences, new relationships, and new habits.
I always hate school is an example of one of Marcus’s Just the Bad ANTs. When I asked him if he always really hated school, he said no. He liked sports, time with his friends, and math.
Other examples of Just the Bad ANTs include
I wanted to lose 30 pounds in 10 weeks, but I’ve only lost 8 pounds. I’m a complete failure.
I went to the gym and did a hard workout, but the guy on the bike next to me was talking the whole time, so I’m never going back there.
I gave a presentation at work to 30 people. Even though people told me they liked it, one person fell asleep during my talk, so it must have really been terrible.
As we’ve seen, focusing on the negative releases brain chemicals that make you feel bad, and that reduces brain activity in the area involved with self-control, judgment, and planning. This increases the odds of your making bad choices, such as ordering a third drink, eating a bowlful of chips, or staying up so late updating your social networking site that you wake up exhausted and need to guzzle caffeine to get going. Focusing on Just the Bad ANTs sets you up for failure, while focusing on the positive will improve your mood and help you feel better about yourself. Putting a positive spin on your thoughts leads to positive changes in your brain that make you happier and smarter. Here’s how one could think differently about those situations listed above:
I have already lost 8 pounds and have changed my lifestyle, so I will continue to lose weight until I reach my goal of losing 30 pounds.
After working out, I had a lot more energy for the rest of the day.
Most people told me they liked my presentation. I wonder if the person who fell asleep during it stayed up too late last night.
- Guilt-Beating ANTs. Growing up Roman Catholic and going to parochial schools through ninth grade, I had to pass Guilt 101 and Advanced Guilt. Only kidding —but should and shouldn’t were common words when I was growing up. Of course, there are many important should and shouldn’t thoughts, but in my 35 years as a psychiatrist, I’ve found that guilt is generally not a helpful motivator of behavior. It often backfires and can be counterproductive to your goals. When Marcus told me he “should try harder in school,” it wasn’t helping him actually do better. In fact, to Marcus, it seemed the harder he tried, the worse he performed. Thinking in words like should, must, ought to, and have to is typical of Guilt-Beating ANTs.
Here are some examples:
I should visit my parents.
I have to give up sugar.
I must start counting my calories.
I ought to go to the gym more.
I should be more giving.
What happens when you allow these ANTs to circle in your mind? Do they make you more inclined to visit your parents, cut the sugar, count calories, hit the gym, or be more giving? I doubt it. It is human nature to push back when we feel as if we “must” do something, even if it is to our benefit. It is better to replace the Guilt-Beating ANTs with phrases like I want to do this, It fits with my goals to do that, or It would be helpful to do this. In the examples above, it would be beneficial to change the phrases to
I want to visit my parents because they are special to me.
My goal is to stop eating sugar because it will reduce my cravings; prevent energy crashes, diabetes, and inflammation in my body; and get me off this emotional roller coaster.
I want to count my calories because it will help me learn to take control of my eating.
It is in my best interest to go to the gym because it will help me feel more energized.
I am a giving person, and it is my goal to give more to causes I believe are worthwhile.
- Labeling ANTs. Whenever you label yourself or someone else with a negative term, you inhibit your ability to take an honest look at the situation. When Marcus thought, I am an idiot, he lumped himself in with all of the people he ever thought were idiots, which damaged his self-esteem and his ability to make progress in his life. Labeling ANTs strengthen negative pathways in the brain, making the ruts deeper and their walls thicker. These habitual ruts lead to troubled behaviors. If, for example, you label yourself as “lazy,” then why bother trying to do better in school or at work? The Labeling ANT will cause you to give up before you try, and it will keep you stuck in your old ways. Examples of Labeling ANTs include
He’s a jerk.
I’m lazy.
I’m a loser.
She’s cold.
I’m a lousy businessperson.
Even positive labels can be harmful. I tell parents, for example, never to praise children for being smart; praise them instead for working hard. When you tell children they are smart, they become more performance oriented and assume that intelligence cannot be improved. If they start to struggle with a new task, they may feel “not smart” and give up. But if you praise children for working hard, when they come up against a difficult task, they will persist because “they work hard.”
- Fortune-Teller ANTs. Don’t listen to these lying ANTs! Fortune-Teller ANTs think they can see what is going to happen in the future, but all they really do is think up bad stuff that makes you upset. They creep into your mind and predict the future with fear. Of course, it is helpful to prepare for potential problems, but if you spend all your time focused on a fearful future, you will be filled with anxiety. Marcus’s anxiety was driven by his Fortune-Teller ANTs, such as I will fail school . . . I’ll never go to college . . . I will be a failure. Other examples of this deceiver include
If I run, I’ll sprain my ankle.
If I give that presentation, I will have a panic attack.
None of my investments will pay off.
If I go to bed earlier, I’m just going to lie there awake for hours.
After my divorce, I’ll never find another love relationship.
Predicting the worst in a situation causes an immediate rise in heart and breathing rates and can make you feel anxious. It can trigger cravings for sugar or refined carbs and make you feel as if you need to eat to calm your anxiety. What makes Fortune-Teller ANTs even worse is that your mind is so powerful, it can make happen what you imagine. When you think you will sprain your ankle, for example, that thought may deactivate the cerebellum, making you more clumsy and likely to get hurt. Similarly, if you are convinced you won’t get a good night’s sleep or find a new relationship, you will be less likely to engage in the behaviors that might make it so. I helped Marcus eliminate this ANT by teaching him how to talk back to it: I will find a way to succeed . . . I’ll go to college if I want to . . . I will succeed with hard work.
- Mind Reader ANTs. This ANT is convinced it can see inside someone else’s mind and know how others think and feel without even being told. It says things like “Everyone thinks I am stupid,” or “They are laughing at me.” When you’re sure you know what others are thinking even though they have not told you and you have not asked them, you are feeding your Mind Reader ANTs. When Marcus told me, “My teachers hate me,” he was allowing this ANT to torture him. I have 25 years of education, and I can’t tell what anyone else is thinking unless they tell me. A glance in your direction doesn’t mean somebody is talking about you or mad at you. I tell people that a negative look from someone else may mean nothing more than that he or she is constipated! You just don’t know.
I teach all my patients the “18-40-60 Rule,” which says that when you are 18 you worry about what everyone thinks of you; when you are 40 you don’t care what anyone thinks about you; and when you are 60 you realize no one has been thinking about you at all. People spend their days worrying and thinking about themselves, not about you. Stop trying to read their minds. Examples include
My boss doesn’t like me.
My martial arts teacher doesn’t respect me because I’m fat.
My friends think I won’t be able to keep up with them on our hike.
My father thinks I’ll never amount to much.
Don’t let this ANT erase your good feelings. When there are things you don’t understand, ask for clarification. Mind Reader ANTs are infectious and cause trouble between people.
- Blaming ANTs. When things go wrong, the Blaming ANT always sings the same old sad song: He did it! She did it! It’s not my fault! It’s your fault! This ANT doesn’t want you to admit your mistakes or to learn how to fix things and make them right; it wants you to be a victim. Of all the ANTs, Blaming ANTs are the most toxic. I call them red ANTs, because they not only steal your happiness, they also drain you of your personal power. When you blame something or someone else for the problems in your life, you become a victim of circumstances who can’t do anything to change the situation. When Marcus said, “It’s my parents’ fault for not letting me quit,” he was allowing the Blaming ANT to take hold in his brain. Be honest with yourself and ask yourself if you have a tendency to say things like
If only you hadn’t done that, I would have been successful.
It’s your fault I failed because you didn’t do enough to help me.
It’s not my fault I eat too much; my mom taught me to clean my plate.
I’m having trouble meeting this deadline because the client keeps changing his mind. I’m miserable, and it’s all his fault!
My boyfriend didn’t call on time, and now it’s too late to go to that movie I wanted to see. He’s ruined my night!
Beginning a sentence with “It is your fault that I . . .” can ruin your life. Blaming ANTs make you a victim, and when you are a victim, you are powerless to change your behavior. In order to break free from the Blaming ANT addiction, you have to change your thinking by making it your responsibility to change. It is your life. I love what author Vernon Howard once wrote: “Permitting your life to be taken over by another person is like letting the waiter eat your dinner.”
At the same time, self-blame is equally toxic. Always strive to be a good coach to yourself, rather than someone who is toxic or abusive.
SEVEN STRATEGIES TO MASTER YOUR MIND
It is possible to learn how to listen to your thoughts and redirect them so that you feel happier and more positive. Here are seven strategies that will help you put what I have just discussed into practice.
Strategy #1: Eliminate ANTs as they attack.
Get a journal or use the note app on your phone, and whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or out of control,
- Write down your automatic negative thoughts (ANTs).
- Identify the ANT species. (It may be more than one.)
- Ask yourself if you are 100 percent sure the thought is true.
Shining a beam of truth on the ANTs causes them to disintegrate. Here are six examples from my patients:
- From a woman who was raped, who came to see me for anxiety and depression:
ANT: I am fractured.
ANT Species: She listed it as an All-or-Nothing and Labeling ANT.
Is It True? “It is not true,” she wrote. “I am a good person who was attacked. I can overcome it to become whole.” Talking back to the thought takes away its power.
- From a father whose adult son was a drug addict:
ANT: I am not a good father.
ANT Species: He listed it as an All-or-Nothing and Guilt-Beating ANT.
Is It True? “It is not true,” he wrote. “I was present and loving. Addiction runs in our family, but ultimately it was my son’s choice to engage in behaviors where he lost control. I will be there to support him as I can, but I cannot control his life.”
- From a woman whose son was murdered:
ANT: I am evil for wanting his murderer to be punished.
ANT Species: She listed it as a Labeling ANT.
Is It True? “It is not true,” she wrote. “I am a good person with a loving heart. I miss my son so much and have hope I will see him again in heaven.”
- From a woman having marital problems, who felt herself becoming more clinging and desperate:
ANT: My husband will leave me and I will be all alone.
ANT Species: She listed it as a Fortune-Teller ANT.
Is It True? She wrote, “I don’t know if it is true, but if I keep acting anxious and desperate, he will leave me. I need to be strong no matter what happens.”
- From a man who was fired from work because of his temper:
ANT: I am a bad person and will never find another job. My family will be destitute.
ANT Species: He listed it as a Labeling and Fortune-Teller ANT.
Is It True? “I need to understand and fix my temper,” he told me. “I am a good person and will work to find another job to care for my family and myself.”
- From a young adult who was struggling in college:
ANT: I’ll never be as good as my friends.
ANT Species: He listed it as an All-or-Nothing ANT.
Is It True? He told me, “I am better than my friends at some things and not at others. I need to stop being so hard on myself.”
Confronting ANTs with truth is a powerful tool. Several months after Marcus learned to eliminate the ANTs, his anxiety and depression were remarkably reduced and his school performance improved. He went on to graduate from college with honors and eventually from law school. Don’t believe every stupid thought you have.
Strategy #2: Stop monkey mind by paying attention to it.
We all deal with disjointed thoughts at times, but one of the best ways to stop the monkeys from ruining your mind with all their distractions is to start paying attention to them. When you ignore your inner life, like attention-starved children the monkeys start to misbehave, torture you, belittle you, and wreak all sorts of havoc. However, when you start noticing your thoughts, evaluating them, or even being amused by them, they loosen their control over your emotional life.
Taking time to reflect and direct your inner life can help you train the monkeys to work for you, rather than threaten your sanity. Meditation is a wonderful way to get control of your mind (see chapter 1, pages 20–21). Research has shown that meditation can slow your heart rate, lower blood pressure, increase circulation, aid digestion, strengthen your immune system, improve cognition, focus, and memory, and decrease brain aging, addictions, anxiety, depression, and irritability.[131] Devoting a few minutes each day to this practice, whether by meditating on a Scripture passage or doing the Loving-Kindness Meditation, will help you quiet your mind.
Strategy #3: Start every day with the phrase “Today is going to be a great day.”
As soon as you awaken or your feet hit the floor in the morning, say these words out loud. Since your mind is prone to negativity, it will find stress in the upcoming day unless you train and discipline it. When you direct your thoughts to Today is going to be a great day, your brain will help you uncover the reasons why it will be so. When I’m on a tour for public television, for example, and I wake up in a different city every morning, my brain could anticipate everything that could go wrong, including the hassles of travel, causing me to feel lousy. Instead, when I say, “Today is going to be a great day,” I think of all the wonderful people I’ll meet or lives that may be changed by our work, and I enjoy the journey.
You have a choice in where you direct your attention, even in times of loss. This simple strategy can make a powerfully positive difference in your life.
Strategy #4: Record your moods and look for ways to increase gratitude.
Business professionals frequently say, “You cannot change what you do not measure.” That’s why it’s smart to keep a daily journal to record and measure the feeling(s) you want to decrease, such as anxiety, fear, sadness, anger, or grief, or that you want to increase, such as joy, happiness, or another emotion. Write down a feeling and evaluate it on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is “awful” and 10 is “great.” Once you have established this baseline, you can see which of the interventions in Feel Better Fast and Make It Last work best for you. Whenever you have a difficult day or several days, you can look at your journal and try to spot trends, such as certain days of the week, times of the day, time of your menstrual cycle, whether you have eaten or not, and more.
One of the early lessons I learned as a psychiatrist was that I could make nearly anyone cry or feel upset by the questions I asked. If I asked people to think about their worst memories —the times they failed, the incidents where they were most embarrassed, or the day they lost someone they loved —within seconds they would feel bad. But the opposite was also true. If I asked them to think about their happiest moments —the times they succeeded or their experiences of falling in love —they generally started to smile. Here are six quick journaling exercises to help you change your focus.
- Write out three things for which you are grateful. Gratitude helps direct your attention toward positive feelings and away from negative ones. Dr. Hans Selye, considered one of the pioneers of stress research, wrote, “Nothing erases unpleasant thoughts more effectively than conscious concentration on pleasant ones.”[132] If I could bottle gratitude, I would. The benefits far outweigh almost all of the medications I prescribe, without any side effects. A wealth of research suggests that a daily practice of gratitude, which can be as simple as writing down several things we’re grateful for every day, can improve our emotions, health, relationships, personalities, and careers. From a wonderful blog post by Amit Amin[133] at Happier Human and Courtney Ackerman at the Positive Psychology Program,[134] research suggests that gratitude can enhance
- Happiness
- Well-being
- Mood
- Self-esteem
- Resilience
- Sense of spirituality
- Impulse to give
- Optimism
- Reduction in materialism
- Reduction in self-centeredness
- Recovery from substance misuse
- Resistance to stress
- Resistance to envy
- Friendships
- Love relationships
- Career
- Networking ability
- Productivity
- Goal achievement
- Reduction in turnover
- Decision-making among physicians
- Physical health, including
- Physical appearance
- Better sleep
- Fewer physical symptoms
- More time exercising
- Less physical pain
- Lower blood pressure in people who were hypertensive
- Recovery from coronary events
- Vitality and energy
- Longevity[135]
Focusing on gratitude has been found to increase the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system and decrease inflammatory markers;[136] improve depression, stress, and happiness;[137] reduce stress among caregivers;[138] and, among the elderly, significantly decrease state anxiety and depression as well as increase specific memories, life satisfaction, and subjective happiness.[139]
When you make a habit of bringing your attention to the things you’re grateful for, you enhance how your brain works. In times of stress, take a minute to write down three things —big or small —you’re grateful for. You might find you have trouble stopping at three.
- Share a gratitude letter. Martin Seligman, PhD, considered the father of positive psychology, developed this powerful gratitude exercise along with his team at the University of Pennsylvania: Write a 300-word essay about someone you are grateful for, such as a teacher, mentor, friend, boss, or coworker. When you have finished, if possible, make an appointment with that person and read the essay aloud to him or her. Research has shown that doing this significantly increased life satisfaction scores and happiness and decreased symptoms of depression.[140]
- Express your appreciation. To enhance gratitude, add appreciation, which is gratitude that is outwardly expressed and builds bridges between people. Expressing support and appreciation to others has been shown to decrease the stress response in the brain much more powerfully than receiving support.[141] It is better for your brain to give than to receive. To supercharge joyful thinking, get in the habit of writing down the name of one person whom you appreciate and why; then share your feelings with that person with a quick e-mail, text, or call. Do this once a week, and try not to repeat anyone for two months. This exercise will help you build many bridges of goodwill.
- Count your blessings. You can boost your good feelings if you count your blessings instead of sheep at night. In a study of 221 teenagers, the group that focused on counting their blessings reported increases in gratitude, optimism, and life satisfaction and decreases in negative feelings.[142] At bedtime, write down as many good things in your life as you can think of in three minutes.
- Note down what went well. Another exercise that has been shown to quickly increase your level of well-being is called “What Went Well.” Research has shown that people who did this exercise were happier and less depressed at one-month and six-month follow-ups than at the study’s outset.[143] Right before bed, write down three things that went well that day; then ask yourself, “Why did this happen?” This simple exercise has been found to help people in stressful jobs develop more positive emotions.[144]
- Focus on your accomplishments. I once treated a very successful businesswoman who made millions of dollars. She was struggling with anxiety and depression, and she felt that she was a failure and her life was worthless. She repeatedly focused on one incident where a reporter, who as far as I could tell accomplished little in his life except trashing successful people, had harshly criticized her in a magazine article. She played the article over and over in her mind. She had an obsessive pattern in her brain, where she tended to get stuck on negative thoughts and behaviors.
Her first homework assignment was to write out her accomplishments in as much detail as she liked. At her next session she brought eight pages full of accomplishments, including employing 500 people, doing charity work, and maintaining strong relationships. The exercise made her feel great and quickly changed her focus.
Write down the highest and most positive moments of your life. If you can find one moment, odds are you can find two. If you find two, you will likely find four, and so on. By bringing your attention to your successes, you are much more likely to feel better fast.
BENEFITS OF GRATITUDE
Strategy #5: Create optimism with a dose of reality to build resilience fast.
Dr. Seligman developed a concept known as learned helplessness that has had a powerful influence over my career.[145] He found that when dogs, rats, mice, and even cockroaches experienced painful shocks over which they had no control, eventually they would just accept the pain without attempting to escape. Humans, he discovered, do the same thing. In a series of experiments, his research team randomly divided subjects into three groups: those who were exposed to a loud noise they could stop by pushing a button; those who heard the irritating noise but couldn’t turn it off; and a control group who heard nothing at all. The following day the subjects faced a new research task that again involved painful sounds. To turn it off, all they had to do was move their hands about 12 inches. The people in the first and third groups figured this out quickly and were able to turn off the noise. But most of the people in the second group did nothing at all. Expecting failure, they didn’t even try to escape the irritating noise. They had learned to be helpless.
Yet —and this is where it gets exciting —about one-third of the people in group two, who had been unable to escape the pain, never became helpless. Why? The answer turned out to be optimism. Dr. Seligman’s team discovered that people who do not give up interpret the pain and setbacks as
- temporary as opposed to permanent;
- limited instead of pervasive; and
- changeable instead of out of their control.
Optimists would say things like “It will go away quickly; it’s just this one situation, and I can do something about it.” Dr. Seligman’s team came to believe that teaching optimism could help inoculate people against anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and relationship problems. Here are some of his main ideas:
- Listen to yourself and others to see how things are explained. Are the people powerful or victims? Do they have control or no control? Are hardships permanent or temporary? Pessimists describe bad things as permanent and pervasive and good things as temporary, while optimists describe things in just the reverse: the bad as temporary and the good as permanent and pervasive.
- Change your language and feelings around the situations you face. You can stop being a victim, take control wherever possible, and understand that hardships are usually temporary.
- Allow mistakes to be learning experiences, rather than a final judgment on your self-worth. Everyone makes mistakes; it’s how you respond to them that determines how quickly you recover. Accepting a mistake and looking for the lesson you can take away from it will help you get over it and move on.
Strive to take control of your life, be forward thinking, and see possibilities. A huge study involving more than 97,000 people found that those who were optimistic had significantly lower heart disease than those who were pessimistic.[146] Women who scored highly on “cynical hostility” were also more likely to develop coronary heart disease. Optimism is also associated with a higher quality of life,[147] a lower incidence of stroke,[148] improved immune system function,[149] better pain tolerance,[150] and longer survival in lung cancer patients.[151]
Yet as we’ve seen, blind optimism can lead to early death. The Longevity Project from Stanford University found that people who were mindlessly optimistic died the earliest from accidents and preventable illnesses.[152] Being sleep-deprived led to increased optimism and poorer life choices.[153] College students who were too optimistic had more binge-drinking behavior,[154] and compulsive gamblers were often rated as too optimistic.[155] The bottom line: It is always best to balance optimism with planning for and preventing future trouble. Being optimistic about eating a third bowl of ice cream with caramel sauce will lead to early death, no matter how much you wish it wouldn’t.
Strategy #6: Change the B stuff.
We are not controlled by events or people, but by our perceptions of them.
I once heard the following story: At the turn of the century a shoe company sent a representative to Africa. He wired back, “I’m coming home. No one wears shoes here.” Another company sent their representative, who sold thousands of shoes. He wired back to his company, “Business is fantastic. No one has ever heard of shoes here.” The two representatives perceived the same situation from markedly different perspectives, and they obtained dramatically different results.
Perception is the way we, as individuals, interpret ourselves and the world around us. Our five senses take in the world, but perception occurs as our brains process the incoming information through our “feeling filters.” When our filters feel good, we translate information in a positive way. When our filters are angry or hostile, we perceive the world as negative toward us. Our perceptions of the outside world are based on our inner worlds. When we’re feeling tired, for example, we’re much more likely to be irritated by a child’s behavior that usually doesn’t bother us.
Our view of a situation has a greater impact on our lives than the situation itself. Noted psychiatrist Richard Gardner has said that the world is like a Rorschach test, where a person is asked to describe what he or she sees in 10 inkblots that mean absolutely nothing. What we see in the inkblot is based on our inner view of the world; our perceptions bear witness to our state of mind. As we think, so do we perceive. Therefore, in reality, we need not seek to change the outside world but rather to change our inner worlds. I teach all of my patients the A-B-C model:
A is the actual event,
B is how we interpret or perceive the event, and
C is how we react to the event.
Other people or events (A) can’t make us do anything. It is our interpretation or perception (B) that causes our behavior (C). Consider, for instance, the time I yawned during a therapy session with a patient. He asked if I found him boring. I replied that it was important that he asked. I had been up most of the previous night with an emergency and was tired, but I found what he was saying very interesting. My yawning was A, his interpretation that I was bored was B, and his asking me about it was C. I was glad he asked about my yawn because some patients’ C would have been to leave the therapy session with a negative feeling. When we can allow ourselves to look at the alternatives and challenge our initial negative perceptions, we’ve traveled a long way toward emotional health.
Questioning the B stuff is so important. It can make the difference between a meaningful life and death. Think about the two New Testament stories of Judas and Peter, two of Jesus’ disciples, betraying Jesus on the night He was arrested (see Matthew 26:69–27:10). Judas accepted money to identify Jesus to the Temple guards, who arrested Him. Later that night Peter denied he even knew Jesus —three times. A was betrayal. B was their interpretation of the betrayal: Judas felt he had committed an unforgivable sin; Peter was ashamed and wept. C was each of their reactions: Judas returned the 30 pieces of silver and then hanged himself, while Peter asked for and was given forgiveness and later became a central figure in starting the Christian church. If we don’t question our perceptions, they can take us to places we don’t want to go.
Strategy #7: Watch the Disney movie Pollyanna.
One of my favorite movies of all time is the Disney movie Pollyanna, based on the 1913 book of the same name by Eleanor Porter. After her missionary parents died, Pollyanna came to live with her aunt Polly and was able to help turn a divided small town with many negative people into a positive community. She introduced them to “the glad game,” which involved looking for things to be glad about in any situation. Her father had taught her this game once when she was very disappointed. She had always wanted a doll, but her parents never had enough money to buy one for her. When her father asked his missionary sponsors to send a secondhand doll, by mistake they sent Pollyanna a pair of crutches. How can I be glad about crutches? she wondered. Then she decided she could be glad because she didn’t need to use them. This simple game changed the attitudes and lives of many people in the movie. Pollyanna even told the minister what her father had taught her: The Bible had 800 “glad passages,” and if God mentioned being glad that many times, it must be because He wants us to think that way.
Focusing on the negative in situations will make you feel bad. Playing the glad game, or looking for the positive, will help you feel better. This movie is worth the 134-minute investment.
It’s no exaggeration to say that developing accurate, honest, and disciplined thinking can change your life. If you get rid of the ANTs, practice gratitude, manage your perceptions, and follow these other strategies, you’ll see a decrease in worry, anxiety, anger, and negativity and be on your way to feeling better fast.
SEVEN STRATEGIES TO MASTER YOUR MIND
Developing strategies for accurate, honest, and disciplined thinking is critical to success. To accomplish this,
- Eliminate ANTs as they attack.
- Stop monkey mind by paying attention to it.
- Start every day with the phrase “Today is going to be a great day.”
- Record your moods and look for ways to increase gratitude.
- Create optimism with a dose of reality to build resilience fast.
- Change the B stuff.
- Watch the Disney movie Pollyanna.
TINY HABITS THAT CAN HELP YOU FEEL BETTER FAST—AND LEAD TO BIG CHANGES
Each of these habits takes no more than a few minutes. They are anchored to something you do (or think or feel) so that they are more likely to become automatic. Once you do the behaviors you want, find a way to make yourself feel good about them—draw a happy face, pump your fist, or do whatever feels natural. Emotion helps the brain to remember.
- When my feet hit the floor first thing in the morning, I will say to myself, “Today is going to be a great day.”
- After an ANT pops up, I will write down my negative thought and ask, “Is it true?”
- After I get home and put away my keys, I will push play on a meditation audio.
- Before I go to bed, I will count my blessings, listing at least three.
- After I have a negative thought, I will think of what went well that day.
- When I face a difficult situation, I will ask myself, “What is there to be glad about in this situation?”
- After breakfast, I will think of one person I appreciate, and reach out and tell him or her in a quick text or note.