How to Stop Negative Thinking

KingKush
Oct 5, 2022
2 min read

Negative thinking is a pattern of bad thinking habits about ourselves and others. We have negative perceptions about ourselves and the world around us, we are constantly faced with unrealistic expectations from our families and friends and we tend to neglect ourselves. We bottle up our frustrations and insecurities and engage in negative thinking from time to time .We must be mindful of our thought patterns and not give way to these ANTS (automatic negative thinking) as they are intrusive and detrimental to our mental health. ANTS or automatic negative thinking are pathological lairs, they like to destabilize and immobilize us and make it hard for us to live our lives. We must be aware and spot these ANTS, we must recognize that these thoughts are destructive and are trying to ruin our lives. We must understand that dwelling on these negative thoughts will lead to depression, anxiety and other mental illness disorders such as, OCD, social anxiety disorders and other more serious mental health disorders like psychosis.

Negative thinking is part of life but too much negative thinking can have a negative impact on your life. Be careful not to dwell and fall victim to these ANTS. We must get to the root cause of these ANTS, identify these thoughts but DO NOT dwell on them, practice coping techniques and change these negative thinking with more positive thoughts.

Why do we have negative thinking?

We must understand that our brains are automatically programed for “fight or flight” response in case of danger. Our brains tend to think negatively first to protect ourselves. We must identify these “dangerous” situations and ask ourselves if they are true. We must be rational and realistic in these stressful situations, in most cases we are dwelling on things that are not true and will not happen. You might have negative thoughts about the past failures and mistake and we get stuck in a vicious cycle of overthinking ourselves into anxiety and depression; we might have fear and anxiety about the future (anticipatory anxiety) of upcoming event. We all have insecurities about ourselves and what people think of us. We must take care ourselves and treat ourselves with respect, love and compassion and not dwell on these ANTS that try to ruin our lives, making us miserable, anxious and depressed.

How do we stop negative thinking?

Firstly, we must identify these thoughts as ANTS (automatic negative thoughts), be aware and mindful of your thoughts, once you identify them label them as LIARS and dwelling on them will make you depressed, anxious and miserable. Secondly, are these ANTS true? Be realistic and rational, deal with the root cause of this problematic thought before it becomes debilitating .Thirdly, replace the ANT with more constructive positive thought. Lastly, change your belief system about this thought and repeat and reinforce this new positive thinking until it becomes engrained in your new belief system.

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There are other coping techniques like reading, meditating, writing gratitude journal, coloring or taking a walk among others. These techniques will help you in calming down these ANTS and identifying and labeling them as LIARS and replacing them with more constructive thinking habits.