Why ‘healthy neurotics’ can thrive in stressful times – By David Robson (BBC) / Nov 3 2020
Anxiety can be damaging, but harnessing your neuroticism could bring benefits, including some unexpected advantages in the current climate.
We all know the neurotic personality when we see it: think Monica from Friends, or George from Seinfeld. Neurotic people worry too much, and if they don’t have anything concrete to worry about, then they start worrying about not being worried. Perhaps you identify.
On personality tests, participants rate their neuroticism with questions such as “I get irritated easily” and “I am much more anxious than most people” – and the more you agree with those statements, the more neurotic you are. These traits might make for an amusing sitcom character, but it hardly sounds like a recipe for health and happiness. If stress is truly bad for our health, as much research suggests, then you would expect neurotics to have shorter life expectancies.
About two decades ago, however, Howard Friedman at University of California Riverside noticed that the evidence for this assumption was rather weak. “Some good studies showed neurotic people to be or become less healthy or die sooner,” he recalls, “while other good studies showed the opposite – that neurotic people tended to be or become healthier and live longer.”
Continue to article: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201026-why-healthy-neurotics-can-thrive-in-stressful-times
