Personality Types and its Impact on Health

• Personality impacts health based on interaction style, help-seeking behavior, illness perception, social support, control over illness, and longevity.
• Personality traits significantly shape an individual's health.

Definitions

• Personality encapsulates cognitive, affective, and behavioral predispositions across situations and time.
• Personality traits are enduring characteristics that describe an individual.
• Personality types are collections of traits occurring together in individuals.

Personality Types & Impact on Health

• Type A, Type B, Type C, and Type D personalities each have distinct health impacts.

Type A Personality

• Health characteristics include time urgency, anger/hostility, competitive, and achievement-oriented behaviors.
• Hostility is expressed through cynicism, suspicion, and mistrust.
• Hostile individuals tend to eat more, smoke, exercise less, resulting in overweight, high cholesterol/blood pressure, dysrhythmia, and premature death.
• High-stress levels (cortisol) and inflamed arteries can lead to coronary heart disease (CHD).
• Arousal releases epinephrine and norepinephrine leading to cardiovascular system injury.
• Anger is linked to relational issues and can be causal.
• Social conflicts and poor support result in stress.
• Negative emotions lead to depression, anxiety and increased CHD risk.
• Maintained or increased hostility results in higher cardiovascular disease risks like angina, arteriosclerosis, and myocardial infarction.
• Strategies to mitigate the effects of anger include relaxation therapy, meditation, and yoga.
• Stress and a drive to compete causes quick reactions to stressors and perceiving them as threats.
• Reactivity increases blood pressure and cortisol levels.
• Urgency causes impulsivity which leads to taking risks without thinking.
• Health can be negatively affected by impulsivity.

Type B Personality

• Health characteristics include being relaxed and extroverted.
• Emotional stability is associated with a higher quality of life, lower heart disease likelihood, less anxiety, and a stronger immune system.
• Effective stress management promotes heart and gastrointestinal health.
• Extroversion is linked to strong social connections, lower stress, a 50% better chance of survival, improved coping skills, and healthy behaviors.

Type C Personality

• Health characteristics include eagerness to please.
• These individuals have strong mind-body connections.
• They often deny feelings and cannot stand up for themselves, displaying rational or unemotional behavior potentially from stress & depression.
• The immune system attacks the self rather than defending.
• This may cause autoimmune disorders like Rheumatoid arthritis, Asthma, MC, Lupus, and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
• Regular counseling and learning to say "no" mitigates the effects of this personality by avoiding unpredictable or stressful situations.

Type D Personality

• Health characteristics are stress and distress.
• They don't express themselves in social situations.
• This personality has a higher risk of compulsive overeating and substance abuse.
• They dwell on negative emotions and are prone to depression/anxiety, leading to risk of gratifying behaviors.
• They have 3 times the risk for future heart problems.

5 Personality Traits

• Hardy personality, self-healing personality, sense of coherence, optimism, resilience.

Hardy Personality

• Characterized by control, commitment/purpose/involvement, and viewing challenges as opportunities.
• Able to deal with stress and show less physiological strain, resulting in healthier outcomes.

Sense of Coherence

• Individuals view the world as comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful.
• This is associated with fewer mortality rates from cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Resilience

• Characterized by high levels of self-esteem, personal control, and optimism.
• The ability to appraise negative events as less stressful/positive and 'bounce back'.
• Resilience includes genetic predisposition, better stress coping, and compensating life experiences.

Self-Healing Personality

• Characterized by being curious, secure, constructive, responsive, and conscientious.
• Health benefits include engaging in physical activity, maintaining good diets, avoiding smoking/substance abuse.
• This personality type has strong social support with emotional balance.

Optimism

• A view that good things are likely to happen.
• Health benefits include a 50% lower rate of heart-related deaths, better health habits, improved mental and physical health, and faster recovery.
• On the extreme end spectrum they don't perceive harm.

Conclusion

• Understanding personality types reveals how people interact and behave, indirectly influencing their health status.
• Aids in predicting compliance and making appropriate referrals to other professionals.
• Each person should be evaluated as a unique individual.