Fear is loud, but base rates whisper—hear them to stay sane

After a frightening headline, you feel a jolt of electricity in your chest. Your thumb reaches for more updates before your prefrontal cortex even wakes up. It’s human, and it’s also hackable. Terror works by spectacle, not scale. On the worst day, it steals attention far beyond its material damage. Meanwhile, ordinary risks like speeding, sugar, or small lapses in sleep harm more people quietly.

History backs this up. In one battle on the Somme, tens of thousands died in hours. Modern terrorism rarely reaches that scale, yet it dominates airwaves. Why? Because it’s designed for the camera. Like a fly buzzing in a bull’s ear, it aims to provoke an overreaction, to make the bull smash the china on its own. The media isn’t evil for reporting, but an always‑on feed turns rare events into constant mental weather.

So you write down a few base rates—traffic deaths, heart disease, accidents—and stick the note by your monitor. You set two news windows, one in the morning, one in the evening, and uninstall the app that pings you ten times an hour. You rehearse a simple plan with your family: meet by the big oak near the library if phones fail. It takes ten minutes and buys a week of calmer evenings.

Then you aim your civic energy where it matters. You read one long‑form brief a week and send a short message supporting evidence‑based prevention rather than theatrics. The phone will still buzz. But your mind won’t jump as high each time. Your coffee tastes like coffee again.

Psychologically, this is shifting from availability bias (we judge risk by memorable examples) toward statistical reasoning. Behaviorally, limited news windows reduce intermittent variable rewards that make scrolling compulsive. Preparedness rituals satisfy the brain’s need for control without feeding fear. Civic notes align your attention with policies that reduce harm rather than amplify spectacle.

Write down three base rates that matter to you and put them where you’ll see them. Decide when you’ll check news—two short windows—and stick to them for a week while adding one good long‑form source for context. Do one simple emergency rehearsal with the people you live with, like agreeing on a meetup spot and checking the first‑aid kit. Finally, send a short note in support of prevention and intelligence over flashy but ineffective measures. You’ll feel steadier without going numb. Try setting your news windows tonight.