How To Overcome Automatic Negative Thoughts
I first became aware of automatic negative thoughts (ANTs) while teaching business and technical writing courses at Rutgers. Two female students, in different classes, told me they could not stand up in front of the entire class of 20 students and make a PowerPoint presentation. “Why?” I asked, but they didn’t know why. They just knew they couldn’t possibly do it.
There were other students who showed great reluctance to do the standup presentation, but they gradually accepted the challenge and did it. But why were some students so certain they couldn’t do it? I decided to better understand this problem, if I could, because the standup PowerPoint presentation was an important requirement and it was likely they would need to do presentations in their career. I wanted to help them.
In all these cases, I patiently continued to encourage them to make the required presentations, but it puzzled me. All of these students were capable and well-performing students. Why did they have such a mental block when it was time to stand up and present their capable thinking and writing? This question led me on a continuing investigation over the years and I hope you will find what I learned about this problem interesting and useful to you in different ways. My story begins with what I learned about how our subconscious brain automatically keeps doing things for us that we’re not aware of, even when we’re asleep.
Our Automatic Thoughts and Behavior
The human brain has been called the most complex and complicated learning machine known to mankind, and we have much yet to learn about how it works. It has about 85 billion (with a “b”) neurons and each neuron is said to be as complex as New York City. The connections between neurons and the rest of the physical body run into the multi trillions (with a “t”). What’s always amazing to me, is how much all parts of our body influence each other and work together. Another amazing thing neuroscientists are discovering is how much is going on in the brain that we are not aware of. The body seems to only want to alert us to these inner functions when something is going wrong.
Psychologists call this automatic functioning automatism. This occurs whenever our involuntary processes, not under the control of our conscious mind, do things for us, like breathing and dreaming. Automatism also includes making our automatic thoughts happen, and they can be either negative or positive thoughts. If you’ve ever tried to do meditation, you’re probably aware of how frustrating it is to relax and try to empty your conscious mind, when so many automatic thoughts keep popping up. You can’t easily control the flow of these automatic thoughts coming from your subconscious mind.
Your dreams are a variation of the same automatism, but with an important difference. You dream when you fall into deep sleep, a level called REM (Rapid Eye Movement). When you dream, your brain automatically turns off your prefrontal cortex functions, which include logical thinking and fact-checking. That’s why your dreams seem weird, or what I call, surreal; half fantasy, half fact.
Our Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs)
Our Automatic Negative Thoughts are defined as brief evaluative thoughts that occur during or after a stressful or negative experience. They are not based on reason or logic, and you may not even be aware of the actual thought itself; only the associated emotional feeling that arises from the thought.
Automatic thoughts can be positive or negative evaluative thoughts about yourself, your abilities, or your future, but the negative ones are the troublemakers and are, therefore, the ones we should focus on and try to better control. They can cause problems that prevent, hinder, or hurt us. They can even contribute to serious mental conditions such as depression. In the following link, you can read about common types of negative thoughts, including all-or-nothing thinking (seeing things in black-and-white categories - you’re a failure if you fall short of something), emotional reasoning (assuming negative emotions reflect how things actually are), and jumping to conclusions (making a negative interpretation even though there are no facts to confirm this). The two important questions for these ANTs are: (1) where do they come from/what triggers them? and (2) how can you manage down their harmful effects?
Where they come from is never easy to answer. Everyone has many different experiences, and a negative thought about yourself is sometimes buried deep in your subconscious. Sometimes you can pick up negative thinking about yourself from your parents in different ways. Whatever the cause or causes, the most important question is what can you do to reduce the potential harm they might cause you.
What You Can Do to Neutralize Your ANTs
The first and most important step is to identify and then attack your ANT. In other words, you must expose it and challenge it. Bring your logical mind into your internal conversation when you are feeling negative for seemingly no good reason. Look for how logical or illogical your negative feeling about yourself is. If you see it is illogical, focus on that, and look for supporting evidence to confirm your conclusion.
When you think about it logically, you often discover it doesn’t really make any sense at all. That’s all you need to know to realize you don’t have to be afraid of it or something you fear happening. You may never know where it comes from, but that’s okay. The most important result is to realize and confirm that it is simply not true or likely at all. Some common self-help to combatting ANTs are the following: self-compassion, self-acceptance, journaling, breathwork, meditation, and emotional self-care. This link also provide great tips on how to break the cycle of ANTs.
Here is how one doctor talks about examining and challenging your automatic negative thoughts.
I found this approach worked when I had my own unexpected ANT experience a short time ago. I needed to get transportation for an appointment I had made with my doctor. When my wife said she could not take me, due conflicts on her schedule, I suddenly began to worry. I may not know how to use my phone to obtain car service. I’m retired now, and don’t do that very often. But as I challenged my fear, I realized there is another service I can use that allows me to simply make a phone call. And then, I asked what’s the worst problem I could have? Maybe missing or rescheduling my appointment. That’s it. If you read my summary of my ANT, you might be tempted to think that my ANT was a silly fear. That’s what other people’s ANTs always seem to be when it’s not your ANT. When your logical mind realizes that your problem is not likely or not logical, your emotional mind starts to calm down. That’s the whole idea behind challenging your ANT. I’m proud to report that I used the alternate car service and made my appointment without any more problems.
One very important recommendation I would make is that your self-therapy may work, as it did in my case, but if it doesn’t, and if you need more help, please don’t hesitate to seek professional help. Sometimes the best investment in time and money you can make is seeking Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). Don’t be afraid to learn about it.
Have you ever felt any ANTs before? I’d love to hear about your experiences, and how you tried to overcome them. Leave your comments below.
Next week, I’d like to talk about a deeper problem: the problem of low self-esteem or a lack of self-confidence. It’s another problem I’ve had to work on and find ways to help myself