So this is an exercise I learned from some Lesswrong folk, technically! But it's also useful for those of us who worry a lot about things that are low-probability, such as plane crashes. 1: Acquire an opaque, small bag, something like a dice bag. Also acquire a lot of tokens of one color (let's say white) and a few tokens of a second color (let's say black), of a kind you can't tell apart by touch. (Marbles, poker chips, etc.) 2: Find out or estimate what the probability is of something happening. Work out the appropriate number of white-and-black tokens you need to put in that bag to represent that probability. (For example, if I want to get a better feel for an event that happens 5% of the time, I'll put 19 white tokens and one black token in the bag. Try not to go past 25 tokens in the bag or so.) 3: Mix up the tokens. Draw one out without looking into the bag. Write down or mentally note what color it is. Put it back. Repeat this for, like, 10 minutes or so. 4: If you want to represent something with a really low probability, you could try guessing the probability of drawing two black tokens consecutively, or three consecutively, or so on. This requires a bit more math. If you repeat this regularly it can help keep you from catastrophizing, because it helps with really grokking probability.
