I AM NEUROTIC. I realize that's a cliche—one of those labels the girl hurls at the guy during the breakup scene in a romantic comedy. But it actually means something specific about my brain—and your brain too, even if you're not neurotic. In fact, according to the brash new psychological theory to end all psychological theories, the neurotic brain holds the key to perhaps the single most powerful change a man can make to increase his odds of health, happiness, and success at work and in relationships.

What is this life-changing step? Facing your fears.

Hey, stick with me, because this isn't what you think it is. After all, we've all heard the same ripe script about facing your fears. All together now: Scared of failure? Climb back on that horse! Terrified of rejection? Stare down those demons! Frightened of getting postered in the paint? Start throwing elbows!

No, this is about facing something less obvious than fear, but more insidious. It's about facing the way you avoid fear and other negative emotions, or how you distract yourself from them, or how you comfort yourself in the face of them.

It's not unusual to feel some social anxiety at a big party. But do you dodge that anxiety by hitting the open bar four times in a half hour? Everybody feels work pressure. But do you vent that pressure by bad-mouthing and undermining the boss? Or avoid it by working at a job beneath your capabilities?

She's the love of your life, sure, but sometimes she's a little too intense, and you worry that it might all unravel. Working late? Having an affair? Pretending you're asleep? It all falls under the heading of "avoiding the problem."

Whatever uneasy feeling you may have isn't the point here. This is about your tendency and mine to build a game plan in order to avoid those emotions rather than live with them. It doesn't matter whether you are texting a booty call or praying on your knees—if you are doing anything to escape having a feeling you don't like, you will fear that feeling even more the next time around. And research shows that you will also lessen your chances of success in a host of measures of well-being, from health to work to relationships.

To tap this potential wellspring of life improvements, you need only commit to a five-step action plan. Simple, right? But since each of these steps has its origins in neuroticism, understanding them all requires the following tour (don't fear, it will be brief) through the minds of people with mental woes by the dumpster load. People like me. Smirk if you must, but follow along. You just might pick up a life skill that starts out feeling seriously strange and ends up feeling strangely serious.

THE WORRY SYNDROME

Allow me to tell you about the wretched ways of my people, the neurotic brotherhood. We have high levels of (1) negative mood, (2) introversion, and (3) inhibition. You know those unguarded, fun-loving guys with easy smiles and jokes and pickup lines and cases of Red Bull running through their veins?

Yeah, I love those guys too. I'm pretty much the opposite.

It's not like we neurotics have bad attitudes on purpose. Our mental approach is a fixed trait. Imaging studies show that we have too much output from the mental boiler room that governs moods, and serious underperformance in the brain cubicles assigned to keep strong feelings in check. That makes us leery about things going wrong because we aren't looking forward to the intense feelings that follow.

But being neurotic has its good aspects, too. We are cautious. We don't try drugs, we drive defensively, and we don't fall for scams. (We don't fall for legit deals either.) Since we see the absurdity in our ways, we can be very funny, and since we always think we are about to die, we can find it very easy to be generous. But mostly, neuroticism makes us scramble to avoid awkward feelings, either with our actions, our thoughts, or both, and that's where my pain can help you.

"I've studied anxiety all my career," psychologist David Barlow, Ph.D., recently told an audience of psychiatrists and psychologists at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

"But maybe what I've really been studying is not anxiety per se, but neuroticism, which is the tendency to view the world in a threatening, unpleasant kind of way." Barlow wants to spread the message that learning to withstand the feelings that make us antsy may be the X factor that separates people who excel in life from those who don't.

"Your ability to tolerate uncomfortable emotions is probably the broadest single psychological concept we know how to change, and with the biggest impact that I know of," says Steven Hayes, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Nevada at Reno.

"People's willingness to sit with uncomfortable emotions and find some meaning in them—feeling, learning, moving on—predicts positive outcomes in their ability to lose weight, quit smoking, stick to an exercise program, learn new software, do well at work, and survive burnout. And it correlates with all these other things like reducing depression and anxiety."

FIVE STEPS TO BANISH FEAR

David Barlow is a towering figure in psychology. He is a major contributor to the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM—the bible of psychiatry and psychology—and a rigorous researcher of the effects and efficacy of therapy. So he's not making an idle claim when he says that his new, five-factor, standardized talk-therapy treatment could be a single remedy for all mood and anxiety disorders. His method is known as the transdiagnostic unified protocol (UP), and a preliminary study already shows that by targeting the behaviors people use to avoid negative thoughts and feelings, it can cure a wide variety of conditions.

In that study, published last year in the journal Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, Barlow and his coauthors reported the results of a pilot test that used UP to treat 15 patients afflicted with the entire market basket of neuroses: social anxiety, panic disorder, OCD, generalized anxiety disorder, major depression, dysthymia, hypochondria, and specific phobias. Ordinarily, a group like this would be treated with a variety of therapies provided by a variety of professionals armed with various manuals, certifications, credentials, and drugs. Yet after 17 sessions, 73 percent of the patients treated with the five factors improved, and 60 percent no longer met the criteria for mental illness. The UP method has helped people beat PTSD as well.

"We are all emotional beings," says Barlow, founder of the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders at Boston University. "Emotions are natural and normal and should be allowed to run their course. The problem comes when you try to exert control over them or otherwise find them more distressing than they need to be."

Just ask Paul (last name withheld), a 43-year-old real estate executive in Boston who developed debilitating panic attacks before sales meetings, and who fired three therapists before Barlow's all-in-one treatment cured him. "You have to feel the feelings," he says. "You can't think about something else or distract yourself. Trying to control the feelings is the biggest mistake you can make. When you try to do that, you just make them stronger."



It's hard work to pinpoint your fear on the map and drive straight through it without taking the scenic route. "There's nothing deep or magical about these skills," says Barlow. "You don't have to lie on the couch for 3 years. It's just a matter of learning a few new things, much like learning a new app on the iPhone."

Sounds easy when he says it.

So let's stop avoiding those skills, shall we? Here's your DIY version of a UP tool kit, from top to bottom.

SKILL 1

NAME YOUR STATE AND FOCUS ON YOUR PLACE

First, you need to be able to identify your state of mind without labeling it or judging it, and that means fixing your attention on what's actually happening—not the scary or threatening stuff you're imagining. This can be complicated, because our anxieties can exist as thoughts, physical sensations, or behaviors—or a combination. "We have these three different things going on," says Kristen Ellard, M.A., a coauthor, with Barlow, of the UP treatment manual. "You need to look at how they are interacting."

A nervous, unemployed guy, for example, might be conjuring judgmental thoughts such as I am tense because I am not strong enough to handle my situation. He may find his heart rate rising in the middle of the day as he contemplates the bills coming due. His desire to avoid these twin demons might trigger some run-for-daylight move, such as surfing for some endorphin-triggering porn. If that same guy can just tell himself that tension is normal, as are the physical sensations attached to tense feelings, he might surf for a few new contacts rather than the usual naked women.

"You want to train your attention toward normal things instead of the negative stuff," says Jon Abramowitz, Ph.D., director of the anxiety and stress-disorders clinic at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The best place for your focus, it turns out, is something small and real. "Switch your attention to what's going on in front of you," says Ellard. "Say, My heart is racing, but I'm actually sitting here and I am okay. When the focus switches, your heart rate starts to go down."

SKILL 2

USE SIMPLE QUESTIONS TO PUNCTURE NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

Too often we define "character" by the steadfastness with which a man sticks to his principles. But people who can't test their assumptions have what's known as a rigid thinking style, and that can lock in negative patterns. "Rigidity is the enemy of growth," Hayes says. "Do what you've always done, get what you've always gotten."

Say you receive a shutoff notice for your cable bill. If you're a rigid thinker, you might tap into a negative set of assumptions you've made about yourself: I am such a douche. I will be living under a bridge within 3 weeks. (Or: Women hate me; she'll never agree to a date with me. Or: I can't succeed; the boss has it in for me.)

Sound familiar? Ask yourself a few questions before you decide you'll be homeless or single: What's the evidence for that thought? What would a friend tell me to do in this situation? Is there another way to look at this problem? You may find that the beliefs that make you miserable can't survive rational answers to the simplest questions.

SKILL 3

STOP DODGING YOUR FEELINGS

You're probably doing all kinds of things to distract yourself from uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. These efforts are what are known as "safety behaviors," and they make you their prisoner over time. So stop it—now. That's the essence of the UP method.

Do you watch mindless TV so you can check out? What is the unpleasant feeling you're trying to check out from? Maybe it's a flagging connection with your wife. Or those troubling teenagers tapping on the computer upstairs. Or the financial reckoning you need to have with that stack of bills in the kitchen. And those anxiety producers are driving you to the rebroadcast of a decades-old Big Ten game? Is it worth it to watch that outcome (Michigan wins, but you already knew that), and in the meantime leave those relationships foundering or the bank balance in jeopardy? Talk about queasy thoughts.

Avoidance techniques can be subtle, says Abramowitz. "Asking people for reassurance is a very common safety behavior. So is spending too much time checking out your surroundings or reassuring yourself that things are going to be okay—especially when they probably will be anyway."

The next time you feel tempted to escape an antsy feeling, hang in there. Take stock of it. Name it. Watch it for a while. Admire the way your body reacts to the chafing reality. Then ride it all out, like that rafting trip that has you praying first and then smiling later. The discomfort always ends. You survive. But you might not truly believe that yet because you've never given yourself a chance to find out.

SKILL 4

STOP LETTING BAD FEELINGS DICTATE WORSE ACTIONS

Feeling shy and want to cancel your social plans for the night? Go through with them anyway. Nervous about taking the big shot in the game? Square up and shoot. Feel glum? Pretend you're happy.

The idea isn't to fake positive thoughts. You don't have to tell yourself you are going to love the party; you might not. And from what we've seen of your jumper, you may well miss the shot. But you should stop basing your actions on negative feelings. They can hardly help but turn out bad for you. Disconnect feeling blue from staying home. Disconnect feeling bad from frowning. Disconnect your stress over the three-pointer from forcing a pass to a teammate. Feelings don't have to motivate what you do, and that's especially true for negative ones. They're just feelings, not mandates for action.

Next up: Don't try to stifle the way your body expresses emotions you don't like. And you shouldn't try to override your emotions with drugs or alcohol, either. Your body's fear-response system is just doing its job, and those reactions have evolved over millennia. Why would you try to override them in an instant?

Breathlessness, light-headedness, sweating, or a twisting feeling in your stomach are all legitimate physical reactions to anxiety, evidence that your body is trying to give you extra energy and focus for the task at hand. Sure, it's called the fight-or-flight response, but from now on, you're going to stand and fight.

SKILL 5

VISIT YOUR ANXIETIES EVERY NOW AND THEN

Barlow's UP therapy has a kinship with exposure therapy, an anxiety treatment based on bringing patients into close (and healing) contact with what they fear or avoid most. As Barlow recently told that Mayo Clinic audience, "It's not too many emotions that cause mood and anxiety disorders. It's our relationship with our emotions." Exposure therapy makes you identify and understand your thoughts and sensations and the mad scrambling you do when you must face emotions you don't like. You can pay an expert to guide you through these steps, but exposure therapy can also be self-administered. Just place yourself in the situation you dislike most, without your safety net.

This goes straight to the heart of the unified protocol. If you satisfy your need to feel safe, you grant undue power to the circumstance you're seeking protection from.

In order to finally convince yourself that these threats don't exist, you have to address that crowd, go to that party, ride the plane. And go ahead, sit in the dark living room where the "noise" is coming from. Give your noisy fear a number—8 on a scale of 1 to 10, say—and live with it. Ask yourself questions about it, understand it, maybe laugh at it, and finally become a little bored with it. Once you complete this process, you should be able to cut your fear number in half. After all, it's just an empty room—the same empty room from which you're banishing your anxieties by finally confronting them.

THE FEARLESS FACTOR

If the avoidance of fear and other negative thoughts is responsible for all mood and anxiety disorders, the implications of this discovery are vast—for the healthy as well as the anguished. Mood and anxiety disorders are your basic all-star lineup of mainstream mental distress. They include major depression and generalized anxiety disorder. They include social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, hoarding, and germophobia. They include agoraphobia and all the other specific phobias, from the fear of flying to fears of heights, dogs, crowds, elevators, snakes, bridges, public speaking, and storms. Posttraumatic stress disorder is an anxiety disorder that has led to rising rates of suicide among veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Panic disorder is on this list—a condition that is behind hundreds of thousands of false-alarm visits to emergency rooms each year. And far too many of our substance abuse problems stem from mood and anxiety disorders, for men especially. A recent Archives of General Psychiatry study found that almost 20 percent of problem drinkers who had an anxiety disorder used alcohol to self-medicate it. And a 2003 study published in Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology found that three times as many men with mood disorders abused alcohol or drugs.

If Barlow is right, it's not emotions that create clinical problems like depression, panic disorder, and OCD—much less everyday distress, struggles keeping up at work, or an inability to start that workout plan you pinned to your closet door 3 months ago. What allows those problems to take hold are all the desperate attempts we make to protect ourselves from the emotions that make us feel bad. If the UP approach proves correct, the guys with the richest interior lives and the most resilient minds are not the cold, fearless types, but the emotionally willing—the guys who've felt it all and can ride it all out.

SO NERVOUS—SO WHAT?

On a recent bumpy flight, I was watching the TV screen on the seat-back in front of me and came across a news report about the search for the black box of a jetliner that had crashed. I switched to a different channel and then realized what I was doing—avoiding an uncomfortable feeling. So I switched it back and watched the report. It freaked me out. I watched the sweat collecting in my palms. I felt my heart race and my face flush. But I accepted those bodily functions and congratulated myself on my robust fight-or-flight response.

As I did this, I took a part of myself that I reject—my neuroticism—and incorporated it into my life story. It's simply one of the things I feel, along with love for my family and my allegiance to the Minnesota Vikings. And by accepting my fear as just one feeling among many, I not only felt more in command at that moment but was also living my life more fully. Best of all, I would have that much more to offer my daughter the next time she needed a hand to hold during a bumpy flight. And even if it's a sweaty hand, I can live with that. She'll see that I accept my fear, and that acceptance will help her as well.

"It's not something you have to defeat within yourself," says Hayes. "Ask whether there's an issue to be explored in your emotions. Ask yourself if you would have more freedom, more room to live life more fully, if you deliberately exposed yourself to your fears. Use it more as a process of being open to experiences rather than a problem in your life to be solved. It will gradually carve out more space in your life for you to be yourself."

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