Neurotic: A factor for your health

March 31, 2025

Neuroticism is a characteristic of one of the personality traits a person can have. Everyone is neurotic to a greater or lesser degree, and it affects how they live their lives and the choices they make. In this blog article, we will take a closer look at this part of your personality. In the case of a personality trait, it is also referred to as neuroticism.

Neurotic Meaning

Neurotic often means that someone is a little nervous, or finds things exciting. Women are often more affected by this than men.

Neurotic personality + consequences

If you have a neurotic personality, it means you are more likely to suffer from negative feelings, such as:

Anger
Anxiety
Self-awareness (on all your negative stuff)
Irritability
Emotional instability
Depression [1]

As a result, people with high levels of neuroticism often cope worse with stressful situations than those who are less neurotic.

Ordinary situations can be perceived as threatening and can evoke feelings ranging from frustration to complete hopelessness.

People who are neurotic are also more likely to:

Eating Disorders
Fears
Dysphoria (often gloomy or irritable)
Somatic complaints.
Depression

Physically, there are also risks people with higher scores in neuroticism are more likely to suffer from:

Asthma
Heart arrhythmia
Eczema
Irritable bowel syndrome
Immune system not functioning properly
And a higher chance of early death (for example, after cancer, kidney problems or heart problems are detected, compared to other people with the same problems[2]).

Neurotic Traits: Symptoms

It also affects other facets of life, such as:

Experience more feelings of hostility.
Difficult to find and keep a job.
Lots to worry about.
Dissatisfaction with the romantic relationship (marriage), even when there is no objective reason for it (source 1).
Very critical of yourself.
You strongly attract criticism from others.
You feel like you’re not good enough [3].

Cause of neuroticism

It is a trait that is hereditary, but this only counts for up to 60% of cases. So environmental factors also play a big role. For example, if you had a lot of stress as a child or grew up in poverty, this can increase the likelihood of being more neurotic.

It is true that the degree of neuroticism people have is often at its highest when someone is a young adult. As you get older (and gain more life experience) this becomes lower (source 3).

Treatment if your level of neuroticism is problematic

If you are so neurotic that it makes you very unhappy and depressed, there are several treatments available, such as medication or cognitive behavioral therapy (source 1).

In many behavioral disorders and even physical health problems, the degree of neuroticism plays a role in causing the problems.

For anxiety and depression, hypnotherapy is already widely used. So chances are that hypnosis is also really widely used by people who are very neurotic, simply because they are more likely to suffer from anxiety and depressive feelings.

A study examining whether cognitive behavioral therapy combined with hypnosis is effective in treating anxiety in breast cancer patients investigated the variables of anxiety and neuroticism. This study found that in the group receiving therapy with hypnosis, anxiety and neuroticism were lower than in the group without hypnosis[4].

This combination can also be useful for people with somatic disorders[5], something that people who are higher levels of neuroticism are also more prone to.

Hypnosis to be less anxious and neurotic

People with higher levels of neuroticism are much more likely than others to see the negative sides of life. One person may feel a particular day as "normal," while someone who scores high on neuroticism rates that same day as very negative.

How is this possible? So this is partly due to one's genes, but so is childhood experiences. For example, if you have had a stressful childhood with many setbacks, you can start to expect those setbacks and even see them coming when nothing at all is happening yet.

Find and change cause beliefs

For example, there may be a belief that even when things finally go well, you can’t trust that feeling, because something is bound to come along that will make everything in your life go completely wrong again.

That belief that you can’t rely on “wow, things are finally going well” comes from somewhere. The cause can be identified using the regression technique.

With this technique, you go back to the first moment in your life when you felt "you see it can't keep going well." This is often the moment when such a neurotic belief was created and by looking at that moment again, you can gain a different insight that will update the belief.

For example, the belief is fixable[6] to "things can go well and if I focus on that, what disappoints me won't be so bad."

Improve Mindfulness

Speaking of focus, someone who is neurotic focuses mainly on the negative aspects of life. As a result, they may think much more negatively about a situation (and the consequences of that situation) than someone who is less neurotic.

Mindfulness helps you focus on the here and now. This allows you, for example, to enjoy a piece of cake at a birthday party, because you keep thoughts like “now I have to exercise again so I don’t gain weight” at bay.

With hypnotherapy, you can get help to gain more control over your thoughts. For example, there is practice while in trance about how you will act and even think in certain situations.

Are there situations where you always get in a somewhat depressed mood? Then you can use hypnotherapy to practice how you would like to act and think in those kinds of situations, so that you can enjoy, for example, a nice party with more mindfulness.

Or so you can focus on your work without feeling like you're faking it, or that you're actually not good enough for your job.

In the process, mindfulness also allows you to be more aware of how your body feels and how your physical feelings affect your emotions and vice versa. This can also already do a lot to keep your focus on the positive aspects of a situation[7].

Self-hypnosis for relaxation

If you have a neurotic disposition, you’re often more nervous and tense than others. In such cases, self-hypnosis can help you relax.

Research shows that the combination of self-hypnosis and strength training helps reduce stress by 30% and boosts self-confidence[8].

Moving for being less neurotic

If we touch on the topic of exercise, it also helps reduce the degree to which someone is neurotic. Yoga in particular — specifically the form that includes postures, meditation, breathing exercises, and relaxation exercises—helps reduce anxiety[9].

So the combination of exercise and being more in control of your thoughts and relaxation can do a lot to reduce neuroticism.

Motivation to pick up an exercise form, whether it is strength training or yoga, can also be boosted with hypnosis.

Improve self-compassion and a larger circle of influence

Another way to gain more control over your thoughts is, as mentioned earlier, cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness. This also helps you feel more self-compassion [10]. These techniques can be practiced very effectively under hypnosis.

It also helps reduce ruminating—thinking back on things in your life. If you often find yourself fixated on a single topic in your thoughts, it also helps to make more room for other aspects of your life.

That way you know that you don't depend on 1 thing in your life to feel good, but rather spread the influences that help you feel good, so to speak. For example, instead of only thinking about your job, or your partner, you also think about fun hobbies or friends that help you feel good.

Gratitude Exercises

And finally, a gratitude exercise is always a good way to reduce stress and anxiety. You can start and/or end each day by listing 3 to 10 things you’re grateful for that day.

That way, you train yourself to look at the positive aspects of your day precisely because you do want to get your list of 10 things full every day.

One example is:

I am grateful for...