Approaches are surprisingly saner (5)
I believe the answer is:
nears
'approaches' is the definition.
('near' can be a synonym of 'approach')
'surprisingly saner' is the wordplay.
'surprisingly' is an anagram indicator (a surprising ordering of the letters).
'saner' with letters rearranged gives 'NEARS'.
'are' is the link.
(Other definitions for nears that I've seen before include "Uses snare to get closer" , "Saner (anag.)" , "Becomes closer" , "Moves towards" , "Gets closer" .)