What Your Nervous System Hears When You Scroll

How often do you see messaging like this:

• “You’re destroying your hormones and don’t even realize it.”

• “If you keep doing this, your body will eventually pay the price.”

• “Here’s what’s secretly ruining your health.”

• “Everything you’ve been taught is wrong.”

I see messaging like this everywhere and I’m sure you do too. And I get why people use these kinds of hooks. It grabs your attention. It sparks emotion. It makes us stop scrolling because we want to know more. 

In a world where everyone is competing for attention, emotionally charged content almost always performs better than calm, reassuring content. This kind of messaging is so common, you might not even consciously notice it anymore. 

I know I didn’t… not until I was the one creating content.

There’s a comedian I love that has a bit about this. 

He talks about how the news always grabs our attention by making everything sound so dire. Dramatic news music “At 5 o’clock, learn what’s really inside your soup.” Well I thought I knew what was in my soup, isn’t it just broth? This sounds bad, I better tune in. Dramatic news music “If you thought your soup had broth, you were right. But do you know what’s in your broth?! Find out, after these messages.” 

And that’s how they hook us.

They create just enough uncertainty, fear, or urgency that your brain wants to know more. But lately I’ve been wondering what this kind of messaging is doing to our nervous systems.

Because it’s not just in an occasional ad or post anymore. It’s everywhere. All day long, our nervous systems are receiving the same subtle message:

“You’re not safe.”

And I really wonder if that’s having a bigger impact on us than we realize.

Your Brain Is Designed to Notice Threats

One of the reasons fear-based marketing works so well is because your brain is literally wired to prioritize danger.

Your nervous system is constantly scanning your environment for cues of safety and threat. That’s happening under the surface all day, every day, because that’s part of its job.

First and foremost, we are wired for survival.

If we miss a threat, the consequences could be serious, deadly even. Missing something pleasant usually doesn’t carry the same risk. So the brain naturally pays closer attention to information that feels alarming, urgent, negative, or emotionally charged.

That’s why messaging rooted in fear grabs our attention so quickly. And it’s also why calm, reassuring content often gets scrolled past. It’s rarely conscious. But most of us do it.

Social media platforms and news media know this too. Content that creates stronger emotional reactions tends to get more engagement — more clicks, more comments, more shares.

And more engagement means more visibility.

I personally think the big corporations understand exactly what they’re doing here. Entire marketing departments study human behavior and attention.

But with individual creators, I think it’s usually less intentional than that. Most people are simply using the kinds of hooks that get results. The kinds of hooks they’ve been taught work.

And unfortunately… they do work.

This is where it becomes problematic for all of us consuming that content. If this kind of messaging only showed up occasionally, our nervous systems could probably handle it just fine. But for most of us, it’s not occasional. It’s constant.

So many of us are consuming hundreds — sometimes thousands — of pieces of information every single day. 

Bad news.
Outrage.
Comparison.
Urgency.
Conflict.
“Fix yourself” messaging.
Health fear.
Productivity pressure.
People telling you everything you’re doing wrong.

Just about everything we consume ends up sending a signal to our nervous system that we’re unsafe. 

It only makes sense that this is contributing to why so many people feel exhausted, anxious, overwhelmed, emotionally reactive, or unable to fully relax. 

Our nervous systems were never designed to process this much danger input all the time. It’s like constantly filling a rain barrel without ever giving it the chance to empty. 

Every stressful headline.
Every fear-based hook.
Every comparison spiral.
Every “you’re falling behind” message.

Drip.
Drip.
Drip.

Eventually the barrel overflows.

And what makes this especially insidious is that most of the time we’re completely unaware of what’s happening consciously. It’s all under the radar, like a program running in the background but we’ve tuned out all the alerts. 

I remember hearing a podcast years ago where they hooked a well-known journalist up to devices in order to measure his stress response. And then they started sending him phone notifications.

A like on a Facebook post. An email. A text. 

He watched the notifications pop up and said he genuinely felt nothing. He wasn’t consciously aware of any reaction at all. He felt completely calm. 

But his body told a different story. The devices showed measurable signs of stress in his physiology — even though he wasn’t consciously aware of any stress. 

This fits with the research. There are studies that show that phone notifications can increase stress hormones, fragment your attention, and make it harder for our brains to fully relax and focus — even when we don’t consciously feel stressed.

One especially interesting finding is that even having your phone nearby can increase cognitive load because part of the brain remains slightly “on alert,” waiting for possible input.

And we wonder why so many of us feel constantly on edge. Why it feels so hard to truly relax.

The technology itself activates our stress response. And then the messaging keeps us there.

Even the Wellness Space Isn’t Immune to This

Wellness is a major industry right now. And it’s not only because there are people looking to make money. It's mostly because there’s such a huge need. 

Beyond stress and anxiety management, there are so many people who are unwell and just want to get better. But because of that, there is also a boom in the amount of people who are there to tell you exactly how to do it. 

And I’ve noticed how easy it is for fear-based messaging to become part of wellness marketing.

And I get why. Fear gets attention. 

“You’re inflamed.”
“Your nervous system is dysregulated.”
“Your food is toxic.”
“Your hormones are wrecked.”
“Your stress is destroying your gut.”

It’s so hard because some of that information contains truth. There are very real threats that impact our health and well-being. There are definite dangers that people need to be aware of. 

I absolutely believe that education on these topics really matter. So much of what helped my healing was because I learned about things that were negatively impacting me and I was able to eliminate or minimize them.

But I also think there’s a big difference between educating someone and constantly activating their nervous system in order to hold their attention. When the focus is too much on getting clicks and not enough about the consumer’s needs, “helpful” content can stop feeling empowering .. and can start creating hypervigilance instead. 

It’s just too easy to set people up to become afraid of all the things: Food, stress, aging, toxins, certain symptoms, making the wrong choice, or not doing enough. In trying to warn people about potential dangers, we end up preventing their healing because now they’re just full of fear. It’s counterintuitive. 

For me, my main goal is to help people feel safer in their bodies. So I’m really careful about my messaging. I never want my content to trigger the survival response in order to keep people engaged. 

But it’s a fine line to walk successfully. 

Even in writing this blog, I caught myself wanting to say things in a way that would capture attention and make someone want to keep reading. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if I’m not careful, it can easily start to create more stress than it helps. 

Sometimes you need to talk about the difficult things, even the scary things. I don’t ever want to shy away from topics that feel important. But my intention is always that people leave my content feeling empowered, informed, and more connected to themselves — not terrified of their body or thinking they’re doing everything wrong. 

The Moment I Realized Social Media Was Affecting Me

This feels really personal to me because of how social media has impacted me in the past.

I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I think it can be such a valuable tool. Humans are endlessly creative, I love seeing what people come up with. Let alone the amount of education and experience we’re able to share because of it. Plus it can be so entertaining (give me all the funny and cute animal videos).

But I didn’t always view social media this way. 

Years ago, I had my social media set up very differently. I was following a lot of people I knew personally or knew of who were living the life I desperately wanted. They were traveling the world, having amazing experiences, helping other people through volunteer work… all things I admired and wished I could do too, but my circumstances didn’t allow for any of it. 

And instead of feeling happy for them, I started to feel discouraged. I became jealous. And I started to resent my life. 

I’d leave social media and instead of feeling better, I’d feel heavy and emotionally drained. 

And I didn’t like feeling that way. 

While it was shining a spotlight on things that I maybe needed to look at (like creating more gratitude, because my life is pretty great), sticking with social media wasn’t the way to create the needed change. All it was doing was triggering my subconscious response that was telling me I was not safe. 

At first I considered getting rid of all of it (which is sometimes the right decision), but instead I realized that I could just set it up differently. 

I unfollowed accounts that consistently made me feel inadequate, anxious, discouraged, or disconnected from my own life. Even if I liked the person. 

I started intentionally following accounts that made me feel inspired, creative, educated, or joyful. Nature accounts, art, gardening. People who felt authentic and calming. Accounts that made me laugh. Content that reminded me that I could notice the beauty around me wherever I was. 

It completely changed my social media experience. Now when I leave social media, I usually feel uplifted instead of depleted. It’s still easy to get sucked into the scroll, but the content itself isn’t upsetting, it’s mostly joyful. 

Awareness and intention changes everything. 

I’m not anti-social media. I think it can be an invaluable tool. But I do think we need to be more aware of how the content we consume impacts us. Specifically how it impacts our nervous system. 

It’s important to understand that most of the messaging we’re consuming is coming at us in a way to intentionally trigger our fear response. And if we’re one of the people feeling like life is just too much .. then maybe it’s time to set some boundaries. 

Instead of mindlessly absorbing everything we scroll past, start paying attention. 

Here’s what you want to notice:

How does this content make me feel?
What happens in my body when I consume it?
Do I leave feeling inspired… or unsafe? Grounded… or activated? Connected… or inadequate?
Does this creator educate me in a way that feels empowering?
Or do I constantly leave feeling fearful, ashamed, or like I’m doing everything wrong?

Anymore, the algorithm mostly shows us content we engage with, rather than the creators we follow. So pay attention to the content that stops your scroll. 

I get it, the train wrecks can pull you in. We naturally want to learn more about any potential threat. But be intentional with how much of your attention you give it. Otherwise you train the algorithm to keep giving you content that’s all based on fear. 

And then most important: Pay attention to how much time you’re spending with all kinds of media. Even when your feed is all puppies and funny skits... scrolling short form video is rewiring how neurochemicals like dopamine are firing. Just opening up your app is activating your nervous system more than you might realize. 

Remember that you are allowed to curate your environment. You are allowed to unfollow people. You can mute relatives that stress you out. You’re allowed (and encouraged) to take breaks. 

Above all, do what you can to protect your peace. 

Imagine what it would look like if we all spent less time consuming and more time living. We may not be able to control everything happening in the world around us. But we can become more intentional about the environments we repeatedly place ourselves in.

And that matters more than most of us realize.