I have trouble regulating my emotions I
have a suspicion it's to do with the
fact that I'm 90th percentile and
openness conscientiousness and
neuroticism and second percentile in the
agreeableness and extraversion any tips
on dealing with that yeah well if you're
really high in openness and you're
really high in neuroticism that could be
a rough combination the
conscientiousness should actually help
with that although it might make you a
bit perfectionistic the problem with
being high and openness which is
creativity and interesting ideas and
high in neuroticism which is tendency
towards anxiety and emotional pain is
that like open people like to break open
boxes conceptual boxes and see what's
inside like Pandora's box but people are
high in neuroticism are more likely to
respond negatively to complexity and
uncertainty and if you're an open person
and you're always thinking up new things
you you tend to saw off the branch that
you're sitting on on a regular basis and
that can be pretty destabilizing any
tips on dealing with that well I would
repeat what I said earlier I think that
one of the things that you do if you're
high in anxiety is to stabilize your
sleep-wake cycles so get up at the same
time go to bed at the same time and eat
at the same time make sure that you eat
breakfast and a big breakfast too that's
heavy on fat and protein because if
you're hungry and then you stress
yourself especially if you're high in
neuroticism you destabilize your your
insulin production system and it will
restabilized till you go to sleep again
so I would say like two things one is
have a big breakfast and then also if
you're feeling particularly anxious try
eating something not carbohydrates and
see if that helps because you you might
be somewhat permanently dysregulated in
your insulin stress-related insulin
production that would be worth trying I
would also say that you should shield
yourself to some degree from news
sources and sources of bad news
especially attack catastrophic news
because most of it isn't news it's the
repetition of things that we all
know full well and there's reason to
protect yourself from an onslaught of
negative information especially when
it's not really necessary for you I mean
I don't think you should bury your head
in the sand but constant exposure to the
catastrophes of the world especially
when there's nothing that you can do
about those catastrophes even
hypothetically is something that can
really destabilize people I often tell
people in my clinical practice which
isn't operating right now by the way to
shield themselves from news reports
because it's just too much if you're
depressed and anxious it's just not
something that you need it's not helpful
to you
second percentile in agreeableness and
extraversion
well you know one of the things that you
can do if you're that low and
agreeableness that shouldn't dis
regulate your emotions but it might
interfere with your relationships with
other people you know because you might
be a little bit harder to you might take
other people's feelings into
consideration less than might be good
for you one of the things that people
who are low and agreeableness can do is
to try to think of things they could do
for other people and make that a
practice you know like maybe once a week
you could consciously do someone a favor
or give someone a gift something like
that and practice being what would you
call it compassionate and polite you
know that'll expand your personality
rather than transforming it so then
maybe you could have the advantages of
being disagreeable which means you're
tough minded and skeptical and
competitive and and and those can all be
really good things but it would be nice
to be able to leave it out a little bit
with some with the ability to take other
people's perspectives a bit more and to
take them into account and then you know
if your relationships improve that can
also improve your emotional stability
because one of the ways that people
regulate their anxieties by having
people around them that they get along
with because you know with you if you
upset people then they upset you and
especially if you're hired neuroticism
and that can increase your anxiety and
your pain so
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