In the past, it was thought that the hard driving, time pressed Type A personality led to more heart attacks than the easy going Type B personality. Unfortunately, that research lead did not prove to be true. But wait, now there is research on a Type D personality, and it remains to be seen whether the Type D personality predicts heart problems any better than the old theories. However, some research suggests that it does.
Johan Denollet, a psychologist in the Netherlands at Tilburg University found a personality type likely to build up chronic stress. They have both negative emotions and an inability to talk with others about those emotions. They tend to overreact to situations with negative emotions but then can't express these emotions and get them out of their systems, so to speak.
Persons high in Type D characteristics tend to have more heart disease, hypertension. They also tend to respond less well to treatment, have a poorer quality of life and to die prematurely. Among heart patients, they are four times as likely of getting another heart attack or dying too soon.
If you are interested in looking at the Type D questionnaire, you can go to
http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Type_D_for_distressed.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment