Youll know you have a sticky mind when reading the news becomes an exercise in navigating a metaphorical minefield.

Youll be scrolling through your morning news feed, haphazardly glazing your eyes over the days events, only to be met by one of those stories that make you stop still. It might be about a new study revealing the most recent stats on the climate crisis, or a violent crime that stays with you long after youve finished reading. But no matter what it is, you know itll be taking up some real estate in your thoughts for a significant amount of time.

Described by psychologists Dr Marty Seif and Dr Sally Winston as a biologically based trait that is experienced as repetitive looping thinking, a sense of getting mired in worry, a talent for imaginative flights into catastrophic images and thoughts, and a tendency for junk channels of the mind to get loud and insistent instead of simply flowing by, someone with a sticky mind essentially gets stuck on specific thoughts, images and ideas and suffers anxiety as a result.

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What is a sticky mind? Heres how to deal with the symptom of anxiety that could be triggered by reading the news - Stylist Magazine