Killing the ANTs
Stop believing every stupid thought you think
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 82%
ANTs — automatic negative thoughts — are the reflexive pessimistic thoughts that steal happiness. Amen's method is to treat every thought as a claim to be tested rather than a fact to be obeyed. When a negative thought appears ('my wife never listens to me'), you catch it and ask 'is that true?', which strips its power. He layers on Steven Hayes' idea of giving your mind a name to gain psychological distance — Amen names his after a troublemaking pet raccoon, Hermy — so the mind becomes something you can observe and train rather than something you are. You then actively train attention toward the positive: opening each day with 'today is going to be a great day,' closing it by cataloguing 'what went well today,' and hunting for small good moments in between. Because neuroplasticity means the brain learns whatever it repeatedly attends to, deliberate positive attention rewires the default toward calm and optimism.
Origin
A professor during Amen's psychiatric residency at Walter Reed told him to teach patients not to believe every stupid thing they think. Amen realised that despite 25 years of education, no one had ever taught him to question his own thoughts, and built the ANT method around it.
Core principles
- 01Automatic negative thoughts steal your happiness
- 02A thought is not a fact — question it before acting on it
- 03Whatever you repeatedly pay attention to, your brain learns to feel
- 04A healthy brain makes negative thoughts easier to manage
How to run it
- 1
Catch the ANT
Notice the automatic negative thought as it arises instead of letting it run unchallenged.
Watch out Unquestioned thoughts get acted on as if they were true, which creates real problems.
- 2
Ask 'is that true?'
Interrogate the thought. Many negative thoughts are simply lies that lose their grip once questioned.
- 3
Name your mind
Give your mind a name so you can separate from it and treat it as a troublemaker to manage rather than the truth about you.
Pro tip Amen names his mind 'Hermy' after a pet raccoon that caused constant trouble.
- 4
Train attention positive
Start each day with 'today is going to be a great day' and end it by asking 'what went well today?', going hour by hour to find what you loved.
Pro tip Set phone reminders through the day to prompt noticing what is going well.
- 5
Hunt micro-moments
Throughout the day, deliberately notice small good moments — a hummingbird, a call from family, your partner's hand — to reinforce the positive pattern.
Watch out This is effortful and skill-based; the payoff comes from daily repetition, not one attempt.
In the wild
Amen's wife, with an ACE score of eight, initially called his positivity-training game 'the dumbest game I've ever seen' because noticing scary people felt like safety to her. Amen argued the chronic stress of constant vigilance would take her out early, and that you have to teach people to notice what's right in order to feel better themselves — the same principle he applies to killing ANTs.
→ Reframed a lifelong negativity bias as a trainable habit rather than a fixed protective instinct.
Common mistakes
Believing thoughts because you thought them
Treating every thought as true means acting on lies, which Amen says gets him 'no end of grief.'
Skipping the daily practice
Attention training only rewires the default if repeated every day; occasional effort does not stick.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone with an overactive inner critic who defaults to noticing what is wrong.
Not ideal for
People whose negativity is driven by an untreated infection or hormone imbalance that needs medical work first.
From the transcript
“You have to teach your patients not to believe every stupid thing they think.”
“Whatever you continually pay attention to, if it's positivity, your brain will learn to be more positive.”
“Give your mind a name.”
From the episode
The 11 Risk Factors That Are Destroying Your Brain - Dr Daniel Amen - #958
Dr Daniel Amen