If it Bleeds it Leads / Manage Anxiety Every Day

If it bleeds it leads, so goes the saying in western journalism schools.

News venues with Henny Penny screaming ‘the sky is falling,’ capitalize on the percolating nature of the mind. Keyed for tragedy and trauma, humans are perceptually set for drama.

It is the eon-old negative bias of the mind, which not only sells papers, but puts some people in a perpetual state of high alert. It is also the nature of this mind to be protective; its primary job being a predictor. It behooves us to know this.

Fit for the hunter-gatherer band of 80,000 years ago, this savanna-mind we inherited, is conditioned to living in the present, seeking food, water and shelter.

But with shackles of modernity this negative bias which is geared for survival gets skewed; a consequence, a worried, downturned countenance.

The National Institute of Mental Health estimates 19.1 percent of adults in the U.S.,60 plus million, have some kind of anxiety disorder. Three hundred million suffer from one of the varying types of anxiety world wide.

Globally, the World Health Organization reports 280 million people suffer from anxiety's cousin, depression.

While those estimates seem extremely low, simply put depression is about experiencing loss; anxiety is about fear of an uncertain future. 

Statistics aside, the savanna-mind, if understood, can help one better negotiate the throes of daily living when the ‘monkey mind’ appears, the Buddhist phrase, describing the restlessness one experiences which is given to distraction.

Crystal Raypole, a psychologist writing in the blog Healthline, says that negative experiences are imprinted more readily in the memory than positive experiences. 

Research into brain imaging depicting energy as a thought shows a person has 6,000 per day, or 6.5 thoughts per minute. When we are calmer there is evidence the mind is quieter with fewer thoughts, Raypole says. 

According to an AI summary pointing to the physiological basis for negativity bias, there is interplay between the brain regions of the amygdala (the brain’s emotional center), the hippocampus (the memory storage locker) and the prefrontal cortex (the processing center). A network loop exists between these areas when processing stimuli.

Psychologist Catherine Moore, posting in the Positive Psychologist blog in April of 2025, said aversive comments stick longer and can cause one to board the worry train for hours. Thoughts of little significance masquerade as threats, and seem real.  

Eckhart Tolle the German spiritualist in his book, The New Earth tells the story of the old monk, Tanzan and the young monk, Enzio. 

Tanzan and the young monk, on a long journey to the village, happen upon a young maiden who is trying to cross a stream. Tanzan spontaneously picks up the maiden and carries her across to the other side. The young monk followed and the two continued their journey. 

The old monk notices the young monk, once talkative, has become quiet. He asks Enzio, “What is bothering you?”

The young monk replied, “You carried that woman across the stream and you know we monks are not to touch women! How could you have done that?”

The old monk gently smiled and said, “I put her down hours ago. Are you still carrying her?”

The story depicts the mind’s bias to hold onto matters due to unbending belief systems. Tolle suggests to better understand emotional regulation, a first step toward enlightenment is educating oneself about the workings of the mind.

As a licensed counselor for the past twenty years, I often hear clients say, “I would be happy if only I could get rid of these dark thoughts.” 

Whether the mind goes to regret or frets about tomorrow, a first step in better contending with the negative bias is: don’t overreact with fight, flight, or freeze behavior. Hoodie figures in parked cars aside, ask yourself is this a real threat, or a superficial one?

A second step: avoid piling on another layer of anxiety to your thinking by saying, “I shouldn’t be feeling this.”   

Nox addere, the Latin for adding to the darkness, suggests when we say, “I shouldn’t be thinking this,” it only makes the thought more ominous than it needs to be.  

It is useful to develop compassion for yourself, and understand uninvited wails are often just overly energized false alarms. And nothing more. They are a part of a thinking system trying to catch up with modernity.    

The preChristian Stoics, which many psychotherapies have borrowed their scripts from, offer a guidepost when contending with dark cloud thoughts. 

Epictetus, the philosopher, who wrote the Stoic handbook, The Encheiridion, said, “have a healthy detachment to your thoughts. And understand that meaning lies not in the thing, but in one's interpretation of  the thing.”

Stoic philosophy also offers the tenet, “some things are within our control, while other things are not.”

For better mental health, know the challenge: we have limited control over the mind’s tendency toward negative bias, but we do have the capacity to recognize this bias. 

So when the Henny Penny mind calls, detach from it and don’t let it lead you into the Fox Den.