How to (Kind of) Master Your Neuroticism - Deepstash
7 Days of Inspiration

Learn more about psychology with this collection

How to find inspiration in everyday life

How to stay motivated

How to cultivate a positive mindset

7 Days of Inspiration

Discover 40 similar ideas in

It takes just

6 mins to read

What is Neuroticism?

What is Neuroticism?

In the Big 5 Model of personality traits, being a neurotic not only disposes you to anxiety and other negative emotions, but to spending lots of time ruminating about all those feelings. 

Negative feelings will lead a nuerotic person to either internalize, withdrawing into their insecurities and ruminations, or externalize, getting angry, irritable, or impulsive. In order to deal with this, they'll attempt to suppress negative feelings and risk developing disordered behaviors, which, essentially, are people’s ill-fated attempts to feel better. 

31

210 reads

1. Reframe “negative” to “difficult.”

"Negative emotion" makes it sound like it's something you need to get rid of. Dalai Lama conceptualizes it as: Rather than calling sadness or anger a negative emotion, call it what it rightly is — a difficult emotion.

34

112 reads

2. Seek Adventure

2. Seek Adventure

If you’re unwilling to experience difficult emotions, then you’re going to preclude yourself from things like relationships, fitness or career. 

To combat this, you need to develop a discipline of risk-taking, forcing yourself to do things you wouldn’t do and make that a regular part of your life. The point isn’t to cure neuroticism but to counterbalance it. The opposite of anxiety is exploration.

34

74 reads

3. Get more granular.

Internally, having a fine-grained understanding of your emotional states can be liberating. When people can describe their emotional states with complexity they experience all sorts benefits, like less alcoholism or aggression and more “emotion regulation,” or being able to keep your psychological footing when things get bumpy.

30

88 reads

4. Put It Into Words

4. Put It Into Words

The actual act of putting those states into words grants relief. Expressively writing for 20 minutes a day for three days has shown to help people become less depressed, less anxious, and take fewer visits to the doctor.

31

57 reads

5. Hold your thoughts with a looser grip

5. Hold your thoughts with a looser grip

Don’t believe everything you think. Dispositional mindfulness — or the quality of generally being aware of what you’re thinking and feeling — has been shown to lessen the depressive effects of neuroticism. Meditation also allows you to nonjudgmentally attend to your own emotions, even if they don’t make you comfortable.

33

66 reads

6. Befriend yourself

6. Befriend yourself

In the Buddhist tradition this is called self compassion. With self-compassionyou’re holding your own hand, befriending the emotion, make empathy intrapersonal.

In a formal practice it would go like this: Spend five or seven minutes in body-based mindfulness, which sets the table and gets you out of your head, then summon an emotion that you’re having difficulty with — heartache, anxiety about work, regret about the thing you did last weekend — and wish yourself well. The four slogans used in Tibetan meditation are: May I be happy, May I be safe, May I be at ease, May I be healthy.

34

66 reads

stash-superman-illustration

Explore the World’s

Best Ideas

200,000+ ideas on pretty much any topic. Created by the smartest people around & well-organized so you can explore at will.

An Idea for Everything

Explore the biggest library of insights. And we've infused it with powerful filtering tools so you can easily find what you need.

Knowledge Library

Powerful Saving & Organizational Tools

Save ideas for later reading, for personalized stashes, or for remembering it later.

# Personal Growth

Take Your Ideas

Anywhere

Organize your ideas & listen on the go. And with Pro, there are no limits.

Listen on the go

Just press play and we take care of the words.

Never worry about spotty connections

No Internet access? No problem. Within the mobile app, all your ideas are available, even when offline.

Get Organized with Stashes

Ideas for your next work project? Quotes that inspire you? Put them in the right place so you never lose them.

Join

2 Million Stashers

4.8

5,740 Reviews

App Store

4.7

72,690 Reviews

Google Play

Ashley Anthony

This app is LOADED with RELEVANT, HELPFUL, AND EDUCATIONAL material. It is creatively intellectual, yet minimal enough to not overstimulate and create a learning block. I am exceptionally impressed with this app!

Shankul Varada

Best app ever! You heard it right. This app has helped me get back on my quest to get things done while equipping myself with knowledge everyday.

samz905

Don’t look further if you love learning new things. A refreshing concept that provides quick ideas for busy thought leaders.

Sean Green

Great interesting short snippets of informative articles. Highly recommended to anyone who loves information and lacks patience.

Ghazala Begum

Even five minutes a day will improve your thinking. I've come across new ideas and learnt to improve existing ways to become more motivated, confident and happier.

Laetitia Berton

I have only been using it for a few days now, but I have found answers to questions I had never consciously formulated, or to problems I face everyday at work or at home. I wish I had found this earlier, highly recommended!

Giovanna Scalzone

Brilliant. It feels fresh and encouraging. So many interesting pieces of information that are just enough to absorb and apply. So happy I found this.

Jamyson Haug

Great for quick bits of information and interesting ideas around whatever topics you are interested in. Visually, it looks great as well.

Read & Learn

20x Faster

without
deepstash

with
deepstash

with

deepstash

Access to 200,000+ ideas

Access to the mobile app

Unlimited idea saving & library

Unlimited history

Unlimited listening to ideas

Downloading & offline access

Personalized recommendations

Supercharge your mind with one idea per day

Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.

Email

I agree to receive email updates