You know the kind of thought—the one that floats to the front of your brain after an unanswered text, a comment in a meeting that lands wrong, or the sight of your reflection at an unflattering angle.
Your heartbeat quickens, your stomach sinks, and the thought feels undeniably true in the moment.
To help us understand this negative thought pattern, we interviewed double-board-certified psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen. As a 12-time New York Times bestselling author, award-winning researcher, and founder of Amen Clinics, Dr. Amen brings clarity to this type of thinking, which he describes as Automatic Negative Thoughts or ANTs.
“I call Automatic Negative Thoughts ‘ANTs’ because one tiny negative thought can quickly become an infestation if you do not catch it,” Dr. Amen says.
One thought leads to another, and before long, you are not just having a bad moment. You are operating from a completely different version of reality.
Why Your Brain Believes Negative Thoughts So Quickly
What makes ANTs tricky is how convincing they sound. They don’t announce themselves as irrational and let you do the discernment; they convince you that it’s common sense.
“ANTs are the little lies your brain tells you, like, ‘I’m not enough, they don’t like me, I always mess things up, nothing ever works out,’” Dr. Amen explains. “And when you believe them, they can steal your mood, raise your stress, shrink your confidence, and poison your relationships before you even realize what happened.”
This is the part that tends to shock people. Many ANTs don’t feel negative at all. They actually feel productive. Replaying a conversation to figure out what you should have said differently can feel like self-improvement or even highly intelligent self-reflection. Holding yourself to an impossibly high standard can feel like ambition.
People like to joke about the despair that comes from being more self-aware, but that actually shines a light on the neural habit of jumping straight to ANTs. It’s not really a joke. These thoughts can actually do damage.
The Negative Thought Patterns to Watch For
According to Dr. Amen, ANTs tend to fall into these recognizable categories:
- All-or-nothing: Treating one mistake as total failure with no room for anything in between.
- Mind reading: Assuming you know exactly what someone else is thinking, usually something critical of you.
- Fortune telling: Predicting a bad outcome before anything has actually happened.
- Blaming: Deciding a problem is entirely someone else’s fault, which can feel protective but keeps you stuck.
- Guilt beating: Using guilt or “should” as the main motivator, as in “I should have,” “I should be,” or “I should know better.”
- Labeling: Reducing yourself or someone else to a single harsh word—like “lazy,” “failure,” or “stupid”—instead of describing the actual situation.
- Focusing only on the negative: Noticing what went wrong while filtering out everything that went right.
Once you can name the pattern, it becomes much easier to catch it the next time it shows up.
How To Catch ANTs Before They Spiral
The good news is that ANTs lose a significant amount of power the moment you notice them. Dr. Amen’s method starts with a simple pause and question.
“The first step is to notice them. When you feel sad, mad, nervous, or insecure, pause and ask yourself, what thought just went through my mind?” he says.
That single question interrupts the automatic part of the process and creates a small window to actually look at what is happening.
From there, the goal isn’t to force toxic positivity onto the thought, but just to question it.
Dr. Amen suggests, “Challenge it like a good friend would. Is it true? Is it absolutely true? Is there another way to see this? What would I say to someone I love?”
That reframe tends to be the most useful part of the entire practice, because many people are far harder on themselves than they would ever be with a friend, loved one, or even a colleague.
Dr. Amen also emphasizes that you are not obligated to accept every thought that crosses your mind just because it showed up. “You do not have to believe every thought you have,” he says.
The thought may still feel loud, but it does not have to be in charge.
“When you talk back to your ANTs, you take back your mind, and when you take back your mind, you change your brain, your body, your relationships, and your life.
The negative thought may still show up sometimes. That part is unavoidable. Our brains naturally go into problem-solving and protection (and sometimes, projection) modes. What changes is whether we let it move in or simply notice it, question it, and let it pass through.
Amen.
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