We all know that chronic stress can wreak havoc on our health, but a new study suggests that a dash of neuroticism could actually be good for you.
So found British researchers from the University of Edinburgh and University of Southhampton, who studied over 500,000 adults between the ages of 37 and 73 over the course of six years.
Their findings, published in the Psychological Science Journal, found that “having higher levels of the personality trait neuroticism may reduce the risk of death for individuals who report being in fair or poor health.”
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“Among people who rated their health as excellent, there was no relationship between neuroticism and mortality, but among those who rated their health as fair or poor, being higher in neuroticism was linked with a small protective effect,” lead researcher Catherine Gale told Harper’s Bazaar UK.
Gale also surmised that neurotic people are probably more likely to self-diagnose their health as poor than the non-neurotic.
If you fall into the former camp, good news: you now have one less thing to worry about. Although on the flipside, you may have longer to worry.
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