Licking the Razor's Edge (2015)

It has been estimated that the average human being entertains 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts
every day – 95% of which are the same or very similar to thoughts he or she entertained
the day before. It has also been estimated that around 80% of our habitual thoughts are
negative in nature, with Dr. Daniel Amen, a renowned psychiatrist and brain imaging
specialist, calling them “automatic negative thoughts” – or “ANTs”. Essentially then, we
as a species are conditioned to constantly identify the things in our surroundings that are
“broken” or “bad” or “dangerous”, so that we can then prosper by fixing, bettering or
avoiding those things.
On its face, this strategy that makes total sense, and yet one of the side effects of this
“negativity bias” is sadness …
The National Institute of Health recently performed a study that measured the blood flow
in the brain, and determined – unsurprisingly – that negative thoughts (35,000+ of them
each day) stimulate the areas of the brain responsible for producing feelings of anxiety
and depression.
It is also no accident that we experience our sadness addictively … for our sadness is
actually physiologically addictive. Every wave of sadness we choose to experience
releases a potent cocktail of dopamine and norepinephrine into our bloodstream – highly
addictive substances that bring with them feelings of exhilaration and increased bursts of
energy (along with waves of anxiety & fear). These two neurotransmitters also serve to
radically lower the levels of seratonin in the blood, which can lead to an almost
irresistible fixation on the source of our sadness.
Our sadness is psychologically addictive as well. We humans are “herd animals”, beings
who gain a great measure of calm and comfort from being surrounded by others who
accept and embrace us. As such, when any of our relationships are lost or weakened for
any reason (death, departure or dissolution), we experience a deep sadness – a wave of
unpleasantness that encourages us not only to bond more strongly with others, but also
reminds us to maintain those ties at all cost. As such, sadness plays a role in keeping our
“herd” together, and thereby in keeping us feeling “safe” and “prosperous”.
“But I don’t have a problem with my sadness”, you might respond. And to this claim, I
must humbly acquiesce … Chances are, you probably don’t regularly deal with extreme
lows in your life. While most folks do engage such “demons” at least once at some point
in their lives, I will joyfully admit that most people do not experience acute sadness most
of the time.
And yet this chapter is not addressing only our extreme moments of sadness – the chronic
depressions, the manic melodramas, the bouts of hysterical sobbing – but is instead
focusing on illuminating the many other ways that sadness has very quietly infiltrated our
seemingly “normal” existence …
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