Change Your Brain, Change Your Life

“One of the limbic techniques that is a mainstay of helping our patients at the Amen Clinics is what I call ANT therapy, or learning how to kill the ANTs (Automatic Negative Thoughts). I coined this term in the early 1990s after a hard day at the office, during which I had several very difficult sessions with suicidal patients, teenagers in turmoil, and a married couple who hated each other. When I got home that evening I found thousands of ants in my kitchen. It was gross. As I started to clean them up, the acronym came to me. I thought of my patients from that day—like my infested kitchen, my patients’ brains were also infected by the negative thoughts that were robbing them of their joy and stealing their happiness. The next day, I brought a can of ant spray as a visual aid and have been working diligently ever since to help my patients eradicate their ANTs.”

“Then I wrote the last thought, ‘Two million people will think you are an idiot.’ In the middle column I wrote ‘mind reading.’ Again, I was predicting the worst. In the third column, I wrote, ‘Maybe so.’

Next to it I wrote three numbers: 18-40-60, which stands for a rule I teach my patients, called the 18-40-60 rule. It says that when you are eighteen, you worry about what everyone thinks of you; when you are forty, you don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about you; and when you’re sixty, you realize no one has been thinking about you at all. People spend their days worrying and thinking about themselves, not you.”

“While I was doing my fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry, my family and I lived in Hawaii. When my son was seven years old, I took him to a marine life educational and entertainment park for the day. We went to the orca show, the dolphin show, and finally, the penguin show. The featured penguin’s name was Fat Freddie. He did amazing things: he jumped off a twenty-foot diving board; he bowled with his nose; he counted with his flippers; he even jumped through a hoop of fire. I had my arm around my son, enjoying the show, when the trainer asked Freddie to get something. Freddie went and got it, and he brought it right back. I thought, ‘Whoa, I ask this kid to get something for me, and he wants to have a discussion with me for twenty minutes, and then he doesn’t want to do it!’ I knew my son was smarter than this penguin.

I went up to the trainer and asked, ‘How did you get Freddie to do all these really neat things?’ The trainer looked at my son, and then she looked at me and said, ‘Unlike parents, whenever Freddie does anything like what I want him to do, I notice him! I give him a hug, and I give him a fish.’ The light when on in my head. Whenever my son did what I wanted him to do, I paid little attention to him, because I was a busy guy, like my own father. However, when he didn’t do what I wanted him to do, I gave him a lot of attention because I didn’t want to raise a bad kid! I was inadvertently teaching him to be a little monster in order to get my attention. Since that day, I have tried hard to notice my son’s good acts and fair attempts (although I don’t toss him a fish, since he doesn’t care for them) and to downplay his mistakes. We’re both better people for it.

I collect penguins as a way to remind myself to notice the good things about the people in my life a lot more than the bad things.”

“Your brain uses 20 to 30 percent of the calories you consume. It is the most expensive real estate in your body. Because of this, one of the most important things you can do for your brain and personal health is to get your nutrition right. There is simply no way around it. You can exercise all you want, think all the right thoughts, meditate, and take dietary supplements, but if you continue to eat highly processed foods laden with sugar, bad fats, and salt, and made from ingredients grown with pesticides, flavored with artificial sweeteners, colored with artificial dyes, and treated with artificial preservatives, there is just no way to keep your brain and body working at their peak. If your food is not the best, you will never be your best.”

“When people come to see me they are usually not doing very well. Over time, if they work the plan we develop, they get better. But no one gets better in a straight line. They get better, then there is a setback, then they get better still, then there may be a setback, then they continue to improve. Over time, they reach a new steady state where they are consistently better. The setbacks are critically important, because if we pay attention to them, they can be our best teachers.

Do you learn from your failures or ignore them? New brain-imaging research suggests that when some people fail their motivation centers become more active, making it more likely they will be able to learn from their experience. When others fail the brain’s pain centers become more active—it literally hurts—making it more likely they will do whatever they can to avoid thinking about the episode, which means they are more likely to repeat the mistake. Learn from your mistakes and use them as stepping stones to success.”

“In order to be an effective brain warrior you have to be prepared for the inevitable roadblocks and setbacks that will come your way. It is critical to identify your most vulnerable moments and have a plan to overcome them.”

“I have my patients remember the two most important words in the English language when it comes to their health: ‘Then what?’ If I do this, ‘Then what’ will happen? If I say this, “Then what’ will happen? Does eating the third piece of pizza, skipping a workout, staying up late, or being a jerk to my wife help me with any of my goals? Of course not. According to research, the people who live the longest and achieve the greatest success are the most conscientious. They know what they want and then they act in consistent ways over time to get it. This is a PFC [pre-frontal cortex] function. Always protect the health of your brain and put these two words up where you can see them every day. Then what?”

“One of my favorite motivational exercises with my patients is called the Fork in the Road. Here, I want you to vividly imagine a fork in the road with two paths. To the left, imagine a future of pain. If you don’t care about your brain and just keep doing what you’ve always done, what will your life be like in a year . . . in five years . . . in ten years . . . in thirty or even fifty years? I want you to imagine your brain continuing to get old and all that goes with that . . . brain fog, tiredness, depression, memory loss, and physical illness. To the right, imagine a future of health. If you care about your brain and do the exercises I recommend, what will your life be like in a few days, in a year . . . in five years . . . in ten years? I want you to imagine your brain getting healthier and younger and all that goes with that . . . mental clarity, better energy, a brighter mood, great memory, a trimmer and healthier body, healthier skin, and a younger brain. Ultimately, with this knowledge you get to choose.”