The “Big Five” is a prominent personality theory in Psychology. It suggests people’s personalities can be described using five main personality traits: conscientiousness, openness, agreeableness, extraversion, and neuroticism. After taking a Big Five questionnaire over the past weekend, I found (to my dismay) that I scored highly in neuroticism: the personality facet that measures an individual’s emotional sensitivity to situations around them.Â
People who score highly in neuroticism are more likely to be anxious, angry, irritable, and depressed; and neuroticism is marked by an inability to recover after facing emotional instability. After doing some internet digging on this personality trait, I found neuroticism was closely linked with poor career success, as well as depression, and general life dissatisfaction.Â
After allowing myself to have a breakdown for a few moments (one that was fit for a neurotic), I started to wonder if there was anything I could do about my neuroticism. After all, surely not every single neurotic person in the world has been barred from achieving at least some success in life. So, what should (and what can) we neurotics do about our emotional susceptibility? While we’re at it, is there anything good about being neurotic?Â
Neuroticism first arose in our ancestors as a trait necessary for survival. Constant danger meant that our ancestors needed to be constantly vigilant. Like the rabbit that understands an overhead shadow to be the sign of a circling predatory hawk, a neurotic person’s discernment of dangerous situations could very well have drawn the line between life and death for our cave dwelling ancestors. In fact, this trait is still at work today in the same settings as they were a few thousand years ago; experiencing fear and anxiety near wild animals keeps you far safer than if you were to approach wild animals without any wariness.Â
While this system probably worked fine for people living in the wild, neuroticism has translated pretty poorly for people living in today’s societies. Rather than being a protective mechanism, neuroticism is the reason many of us feel like failures when we can’t finish a task on time, or why we sometimes interpret someone’s casual remark as a backhanded dig: seemingly little things can feel like the end of the world.Â
Rather unfortunately, research has also shown that neuroticism is linked with lower life expectancy. A study done by Wilson et. al. (2005) found that neuroticism was associated with higher mortality rates. However, the authors suggested this wasn’t because of neuroticism itself, but rather, because neurotics were less likely to be physically, socially, and cognitively active. Being active in all these areas of life contributes to a greater life expectancy.Â
So, what this means for any fellow neurotics out there is that it’s not necessarily our mood disorders driving the stick; it’s more like neuroticism causes us to do less. It logically follows: the more we can do, the more we can overcome our fear of branching out or trying new things or making new friends or learning something we’re not good at, the more resilient we’ll become against life’s hardships.Â
So, how do we put this resilience into practice? Speaking from experience, it’s not so easy to change cemented habits. However, building basic blocks of wellbeing, like getting nutritious meals and exercise, can be very helpful for feeling calmer throughout the day. Something that’s helped me remain relatively regulated throughout the day is waking up early every morning to go hiking. If I can force myself to get up in the morning to do an exercise that I’ve hated doing for years, then I can certainly overcome mood swings and anxiety about work. It’s simply a matter of continuing to move up the mountain against forces that are pulling me down.Â
Oftentimes, seeing myself morph and change into a person with different habits has reminded me of the normalization that comes with the act of doing. Once I began climbing the mountain, it just was. I was a hiker, although I’d never viewed myself as one. And this is the same attitude that allows us neurotic individuals to break free of the label “neurotic” (or not, if you want to lean into being neurotic).Â
Understanding that you hold the power to flip the switch on your life and redefine what’s “normal” just by acting differently is the key to shouldering all the heavy weight that rests on every neurotic’s shoulders. When you make a change in your life that’s personally difficult to commit to, but you hold yourself to it anyway, you’ve already begun to alter your brain chemistry from “I can’t do it” to “what else can I do?”