Kill the ANTs Invading Your Brain
"The thoughts that go through your mind, moment by moment, have a significant impact on how your brain works... Happy, hopeful thoughts have an overall calming effect on the brain, while negative thoughts inflame brain areas often involved with depression and anxiety. Your thoughts matter..."
So states Dr. Daniel G. Amen in this excerpt from the book, "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life" in which Dr. Amen offers 7 ways to enhance the functioning of your own brain and enhance your life.
Dr. Amen identifies four species of ANTs (automatic negative thoughts) that can invade your brain, distort incoming information to make you feel bad:
"Mind reading --- predicting you know that another person is thinking something negative about you without them telling you...
Fortune telling -- predicting a bad outcome to a situation before it has occurred...Unconsciously, predicting failure will often cause failure...
Always or never thinking - this is where you think in words like always, never, every time, or everyone...
Guilt beatings -- being overrun by thoughts of "I should have done... I'm bad because…. I must do better at… I have to…). Guilt is powerful at making us feel bad. It is a lousy motivator of behavior.
Dr. Amen continues:
"You do not have to believe every thought that goes through your head. It's important to think about your thoughts to see if they help you or they hurt you. Unfortunately, if you never challenge your thoughts you just "believe them" as if they were true. ANTs can take over and infest your brain. Develop an internal anteater to hunt down and devour the negative thoughts that are ruining your life...
You can learn how to change your thoughts and optimize your brain. One way to learn how to change your thoughts is to notice them when they are negative and talk back to them. If you can correct negative thoughts, you take away their power over you. When you think a negative thought without challenging it, your mind believes it and your brain reacts to it...."
The other steps Dr. Amen recommends to optimize your brain include:
1. Protect Your Brain...from injury, pollution, sleep deprivation, and stress...
2. Feed Your Brain...lean protein, complex carbohydrates, and foods rich in omega 3 fatty acids (large cold water fish, such as tuna and salmon, walnuts, Brazil nuts, olive oil, and canola oil)...
3. Work Your Brain
Your brain is like a muscle. The more you use it, the more you can use it. Every time you learn something new your brain makes a new connection. Learning enhances blood flow and activity in the brain. If you go for long periods without learning something new you start to lose some of the connections in the brain and you begin to struggle more with memory and learning...
4. Make Love For Your Brain..
Appropriate sex is one of the keys to the brain's fountain of youth.
5. Develop A "Concert State" For Your Brain..."a relaxed body with a sharp, clear mind," much as you would experience at an exhilarating symphony. Achieving this state requires two simultaneous skills: deep relaxation and focus...
A technique for developing clear focus is the "One Page Miracle." On one piece of paper write down the following headings:
-relationships,
-work/school
-money
-physical health
-emotional health
-spiritual health.
Next to each heading write down what you want in each area. For example, under relationships, "I want to have a kind, loving, connected relationship with my children." When you finish writing all of your goals make multiple copies of it and prominently display it where you can see it several times each day. Frequently ask yourself, "Is my behavior getting me what I want?" This exercise helps to keep you focused on the things that are most important in your life...
6. Treat Brain Problems Early...
