Disease Resistance and Your Personality

Are You Disease Resistant?

Your personality type and your resistance to disease is being researched. Researchers have recently been looking into why some people succumb to different chronic illnesses, while others retain their good health.

There has been a lot of discussion about the possibilities of a type of personality that is, in a very real way, “disease resistant”.

So How Is This Possible?

Researchers have found that the way a person deals with stress greatly affects their ability to deal with illness and, as a result, they can successfully ward off severe chronic illness.

It is thought that just by changing the outlook on everyday stressors – such as having a sense of humor about backing the car out of the garage with the door open (I actually did that and snapped my door at the hinges…very expensive fix…and can’t say I was too happy.)

The point is changing your attitude to events that happen, good or bad, can improve a person’s overall wellbeing.

This also applies to people who already have chronic illnesses or pain, such as severe back pain or multiple sclerosis. There is a better survival rate among patients with positive attitudes than in patients who have severe bouts of depression.

Personality types are the sort of subject you might glance at while flicking through a magazine in the GP’s waiting room. Pretty frivolous stuff, you perhaps think. However, new research suggests our personality traits are more significant than previously thought, and can play a key role in future health. It’s long been reported that people with so called Type A personalities – hostile, highly competitive and impatient – are more prone to heart problems. But now researchers are increasingly finding that a wider range of personalities and traits are linked to a host of medical problems, from stomach ulcers and viral infections to Parkinson’s disease.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1028864/Your-personality-type-decide-makes-ill.html#ixzz1unlKhV00

The Daily Mail also said:

People with anxiety disorders are three times more likely to be treated for high blood pressure. A study from Northern Arizona University found stress hormones may be the reason. Meanwhile, women with phobic anxieties, such as fear of heights, were at higher risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and cholesterol. Although behavioural differences – like a greater tendency to smoke among people with anxiety – go some way to explaining why this happens, they do not explain it all. Here’s something else to worry about: a University of Antwerp study found that within ten years of heart treatment, 27 per cent of anxious types were dead, compared to 7 per cent of others.

What personality type are you? Are you stressed or angry and feel how it could easily affect your health? Share your comments below.