Thinking Traps: Spotting & Dealing With Automatic Negative Thoughts ANTS

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Words can be helpful or words can hurt. In the same way, our thoughts can be helpful or hurt.
Self-Talk, aka Metacognition, or "thinking about thinking" is a very important executive function of the prefrontal cortex of the brain. It is the last executive function to develop fully (estimates say anywhere from 22 to 25 years old).
This makes it so crucial to not only notice what we are thinking and also notice the quality of our thoughts. Thoughts that make us feel bad about ourselves are Automatic Negative Thoughts or A.N.T.s. They spontaneously pop into our head automatically and they are negative. The worst part is that they can feel like they are true.

Let's Explore the common A.N.T.S together. It's never too soon to notice our thoughts and decide if they are helpful or not.

Class 1: 
Personalizing- Blaming yourself for something that was not your fault.
All or Nothing (Black or White) Thinking- Things are all good or all bad
Overgeneralizing-making conclusions based on one negative experience
Always Right- Thinking that you are always right, even if it is just an opinion


Class 2:
Filtering- Only paying attention to the negative aspects while ignoring positive 
Discounting the Positive- minimizing personal achievements as inconsequential or invalid
Blaming- Not taking responsibility for actions
Labeling- Giving labels to yourself or others


Class 3:
Emotional Reasoning- believing that negative emotions are the reality
Shoulds- Using words like “should” and “must” can make you feel guilty; things should be a certain way
Jumping to Conclusions 1 Fortune Telling- thinking you can predict the future and that it will be negative
Jumping to Conclusions 2- Mind Reading - Thinking you can read people’s minds 



Class 4:
Binocular 1 -Minimizing- when you downplay significance of situation or event
Binocular 2- Magnifying (Catastrophizing) Thinking things are going to be way worse than they really are
Fairness -Thinking things are not fair to you
Control Fallacies- thinking you have complete control or no control at all