Hi and

every week I'm your host Dr. Ellen Hendrickson

and every week I'll help you meet life's challenges with evidence-based research, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.

Like an ill-fitting suit, jealousy is clingy and unattractive, plus it saps your confidence.

So this week, by request from listener Sonia from Phoenix, Arizona, we'll cover five tips

to stop feeling jealous.

In common parlance, the term jealous often gets used when we actually mean envious, as in, your work sent you to Paris again, I'm so jealous. But in psychology, the two are distinct. Roughly,

envy is when you want what belongs to someone else, whereas jealousy is when something, or more commonly someone, belongs to you, but you're threatened by the prospect of losing it. For example, when you covet your friend's sexy

new leather boots, that's envy. But when you notice your husband's eye follow those boots

across the room, that's jealousy. And jealousy is complicated.

It's a swirling green mix of several negative emotions. And according to a 2008 paper by

Psychologists Robert Leahy and Dennis Church of

Wild Cornell Medical College, jealousy is a form of angry agitated worry.

It's rooted in the threat of loss, usually the threat of losing a relationship.

As it happens, that same 2008 paper is chock full of great ways to fight your jealousy. So here is the cream of the crop.

One asterisk is that the tips that follow assume there's no proof underlying your jealous fears. So as long as you haven't found

unfamiliar underwear in your laundry, here are five tips to get a handle on your

jealousy. Tip number one, rein in your jealous actions. Let's make this clear.

Jealousy happens to the best of us. Almost everyone gets at least a little

jealous in provocative situations.

If your partner is texting a former flame or going on a business trip with the hot new assistant,

it's pretty natural to feel threatened.

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