Start your day with it. End your day with it.
You’re tired, so you turn to it.
You’re starting your workout, so you turn to it.
You want to escape thinking, so you turn to it.
You want to know what the world is doing, so you turn to it.
“News.” It’s the free drug.
People dying, planes crashing, hidden dangers, it could happen to you. Tune in to watch it, to be informed first, to do your part.
That part is the reptilian brain, the amygdala taking over higher level thinking. You are in pure fight or flight mode. Each story, each gruesome detail paints a vivid picture. Add to that actual pictures and videos, and you have the brain’s equivalent of a hijack–an amygdala hijack.
Your mind imagines the scene of the crime, the act happening to you. Your body reacts accordingly, pupils constrict, heart beating faster, cortisol spiking.
You’re glued to the news, you crave every last gory detail. News is all that matters, that is, right after the commercial break.
Forget the good in the world, that doesn’t threaten my livelihood. Forget the vast majority of well-intentioned neighbors, businesses, and people. Forget the 99.99% of plane rides executed perfectly. Forget the statistical improbability that that event will happen to me.
And focus. Focus on that story and create it into my reality. Focus on that victim being me next. Focus on that one person’s action directly ruining my life.
And wrap it in a package of “educating myself” with “fair and balanced” information to ensure that my higher order brain thinks watching it is still the right thing to do too.
After all, everyone’s doing it. Everyone’s addicted to scared.
Now imagine, imagine waking up in the morning not knowing about the statistical improbabilities; of turning in for the night not watching graphic video of brutality; of tuning in to just your day, your actions, thoughts, neighbors.
What would the difference be? What would the difference be of you not addicted to scared?