Stress-related nervous habits range from the mildy innocuous to the monumentally irritating

Johnny Carson had them.

That initially comedic, jerky head swivel he'd do during his reign over "The Tonight Show" and couldn't seem to stop, and the tap-tap-tapping with his pencil that distracted some guests into a frenzy.

Rodney Dangerfield would tug at his tie on stage, his neck stretch the punch line to end every joke. Ted, the news anchor played Ted Knight on the old "Mary Tyler Moore Show" from the '70s, had that stress-induced nasal scream. Abraham Lincoln cracked his knuckles and fiddled with his ear.

Nervous habits.

Every one of us has them. Some of us have more than others.

And it's usually someone seething with frustration who brings it to our attention, rabid from internalizing irritation built up over hours, days, even years of watching us fidget over and over again.

Why do we itch to twitch?

"It's a matter of reducing stress for many people," said Jack Dymond, a consulting psychotherapist practicing in Las Vegas. "Some people are more compulsive than others, but typically people do these types of things as a way to calm or soothe themselves in times of stress."

The "Executive Stone" made its way onto gift shop shelves in recent years as a stress reliever -- touch it, its makers claim, and away go your troubles. Brightly colored foam balls and sand-filled balloons with faces that bulge have been similar hits for the stressed out to squeeze and keep a migraine at bay.

"Things like chewing gum and smoking that eventually become addictive were made to make us feel more comfortable," Dymond said. "I had a client once who used to play with a rubber band. After a while it would really irritate people, but it was this person's way of dealing with nervous energy, a means of doing something to structure time and lessen the stress and the anxiety."

And more often than not, both the people who have the most habits and the people who are most aware of other people's habits are the "Type A's" -- the psychological labeling for classic workaholics who live high-stress lives and tend toward perfectionism, unlike the "Type B's" who are more relaxed, laid back and not worried about making a mistake.

"The more the person is hyperactive or is a Type A, the more a person is likely to be action-oriented," Dymond said.

Brenda Nadell, who earlier this year sued and won a federal civil case against three Metro Police officers on the grounds that they violated her civil rights during an arrest in 1994, had become a compulsive cleaner in the months after being manhandled by police, according to a neuropsychologist's testimony.

Nadell scrubbed the floors, constantly dusted and vacuumed several times a day, the doctor contended, as her means of staying in control. Her paranoid delusion that police would rough her up again if she left home left her feeling like she had no control over the world outside her door, he theorized, so she kept clean and controlled everything inside.

Nadell's problem falls along the lines of the more seriously troubled individuals, such as anorexics who starve themselves as a means of coping with a confusing mix of feeling inadequate, physically and socially.

"When anorexics feel out of control, the only thing they can control is eating or a lack of eating," Dymond said. "It's a way of saying to mom and dad, 'You can't control me or make me do that.' "

Serious compulsions such as anorexia are a different case entirely, both practically and psychologically, than the nervous habits of the guy at work whose leg shaking is making your desk move like a Cal Tech seismograph.

"Each of us, given the same amount of stress, will deal with it in a different way," Dymond said. "There's nothing wrong with doing something that helps you relieve stress as long as it doesn't offend people."

As could the man standing next to you in an elevator, sucking his teeth, as the metal contraption slowly makes its way from the lobby to the 39th floor. Or the woman who sits down beside you in the doctor's office waiting room, shaking her crossed leg and slapping her noxious sour apple bubble gum as she rattles her way through the crinkled communal copy of a year-old People magazine.

Interestingly, psychologists believe that the reason people have nervous habits is similar to the reason why nervous habits irritate people around them.

It's that buzzword of the '90s: Stress.

But it's not just a '90s problem.

History books and diaries are riddled with references to irritating things people did centuries ago.

Michael Green, history professor at the Community College of Southern Nevada, recalled how Lincoln's political idol, Henry Clay, used snuff and, when he spoke, would play with his snuff box.

"Stonewall Jackson was a first-class hypochondriac who always rode into battle with his right arm extended like he was asking to leave the room," Green said. "He thought it helped his health. One of Lincoln's generals, Henry Halleck, had the habit of folding his arms and rubbing his elbows. Why, no one knows. But Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles always griped about it -- it really annoyed him, if no one else."

Nervous habits even destroyed relations.

"Andrew Jackson, who succeeded Lincoln, chewed tobacco," Green continued. "When he became angry, he would talk faster and spit more often. One day, Charles Sumner, the distinguished, immaculately dressed senator from Massachusetts, came to see him and they started arguing over civil rights -- Sumner for, Johnson against.

"Sumner had placed his top hat beside the desk. As they kept talking, Johnson kept spitting. He thought he was hitting a spittoon. At the end of their argument, Sumner put on his top hat, and relations between him and Johnson went downhill from there."

During his years working in psychiatry, Dr. Raymond Moody encountered many couples seeking counseling for a variety of issues and in almost every relationship was an imbalance in what he calls the "sloppiness-neatness" ratio.

"It was a common dispute to have one who was a neatnik and the other a slob. Any two people you choose will be different in their habits and in the intensity of those habits in the marriage," said Moody, now chair of the consciousness studies program at UNLV.

"I've observed over the years that when you have a mate, things that at first seemed so charming changed as the relationship progressed, to really grate on your nerves."

People have a wide range of tolerance, and some are more patient than others.

Why is it, though, that a little sound or mannerism that everyone else seems oblivious to can drive you almost literally insane?

Moody was extremely irritable, he said, 30 years ago while a grad student at the University of Virginia working on his doctorate in philosophy -- a feat he pulled off in three years, which back then was the fastest anyone had ever done it.

"I was really intense, a total workaholic," Moody said. "I remember trying to concentrate on something and the littlest noise would drive me nuts, but I'm not that way now. We live in a townhouse complex. A few nights ago, on Saturday, people next door were playing their stereo and there was that constant thumping noise. When I was 24, that would have driven me bonkers. It may be personal maturity."

Part of it, he senses, came from a "sensory overload" of sorts working in a forensics unit dealing with serial killers and other deranged individuals.

"After going through that, minor personal quirks don't bother me now as they did before that experience," Moody said.

He added that men and women working in high-intensity jobs, such as being a reporter, can be minutely attuned to stimuli -- and therefore increasingly aware of every other person's odd mannerisms.

Most touching, though, and perhaps providing a glance at the bigger picture, is what Moody witnessed while working with the terminally ill and the bereaved.

"They would commonly say, 'As I look back, I feel so sad that I allowed those things about him or her to bug me so much.' They suddenly seem so minor when the person was gone."

It can be maddening, though, if you don't know how to cope.

The day could be otherwise pleasant, the sun shining, the restaurant classy, the mood at the table happy, and then suddenly someone starts eating with his mouth open.

The slurping, the sloshing, the clink of the fork tines on the person's teeth every time he shovels in another bite, the saliva stringing the thick horrific mess together, the moment obscene enough to make you regurgitate what few bites you took in.

Or perhaps you're at work and the woman sitting next to you starts her barely audible humming. It is no song -- no song would be so insanely monotone. But on and on she goes, the same irritating pitch, the same irritating sound. And then it stops. Four minutes later (you know because you looked at the clock), she starts up again.

You're ready to scream. You're ready to ram the nearest pointed instrument into their gut -- whatever it takes to make them stop!

Whew!

It's irritation out of control.

"Certain things get all of us -- things like scratching fingernails across a chalk board," Dr. Patricia Barrera, a clinical psychologist practicing in Green Valley, said.

"But if a person is that irritable at small kinds of things, there is probably a lot more going on than they may be aware of. They are probably experiencing a great deal of tension, pressure and stress. Anything can serve as a trigger."

Irritability is a common complaint Barrera has heard from patients during her 10 years in the valley. Sometimes it's noises, sometimes it's habits the person has seen someone do time and time again.

Much of the solution, Barrera says, is in learning to focus on what's important in the particular situation and not on the things that can't be controlled.

Your own threshold for irritability and frustration, therefore, is based on what you choose to pay attention to.

"If you are stressed and don't know how to cope, think about what could be causing it," Barrera said. "If you don't know how to say no, you don't know your own limits. One of the signs of burnout is stress. Stress leads to irritability, and irritability can degenerate into (dangerous behaviors).

"A person who is that irritable definitely needs to take a step back and do more than take a yoga class. That person needs to look at areas of (his or her) life and whether the demands placed are being met, if they are giving and giving and getting nothing in return, if they are able to say no when people ask more of them than they can give."

Barrera suggests the irritable look into learning an effective stress management technique, breathing exercises that are calming and progressive muscle relaxation, and start exercising.

Diet is another important element. A body being fed with fast foods, fried foods and too much sugar and caffeine won't function effectively in times of stress, Barrera said.

"If they are smoking or drinking too much alcohol, it will cause problems," Barrera said. Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant; caffeine, a stimulant.

"If your body is constantly under stress, it responds by going into a 'fight or flight' response," she said. "If you constantly perceive a sense of heightened danger -- 'If I don't get this deadline, I'll be fired' -- there are physical changes that come as a result of that anxiety."

And anxiety can manifest itself as a stomachache, a headache, restless nights.

Or even a nervous twitch.

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