There are many authors and scientific researchers who affirm that Personality type directly or indirectly affects our physical health

There are different ways of being that each person increases or decreases the probability of suffering from some type of disease, but the origin or cure is not only in the mind.

Can each individual’s personality influence their health?

Some people maintain admirable firmness and strength in the face of exceptionally difficult situations, having all the factors against them. On the other hand, we find individuals who, even having everything in their favor, are prone to suffering from health problems.

We can cite some of the most emblematic characters of our era to highlight the type of personality of each one and how they faced those moments of physical exhaustion.

1. Muhammad Ali

The most famous boxer of all time was stripped of his first title in 1966 and banned from the ring for three years for refusing to participate in the Vietnam War.

But his fighting and persevering personality It made him champion two more times, earning him the nickname “The Greatest of All Time.”

2. Nelson Mandela

Former South African president He spent more than 30 years in prison with more severe restrictions than ordinary prisoners Mandela maintained a very positive attitude that led him to be president of his country and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1993.

The link between the way you are and physical well-being

Already in Antiquity, the Greek Hippocrates and the Roman Galen classified human beings into four psychological types, each of them susceptible to specific health problems

For example, choleric people, according to ancient medicine, tend to be self-sufficient and ambitious people, and this means they are prone to heart problems or lose weight/gain weight easily.

More than two thousand years have passed since those first pioneering investigations between temperament and health.

Expert scientists continue to look for correlations between personality traits and types of disease, and thus develop hypotheses to conclude whether these associations are due to a common biological basis or to one factor causing the other. Perio… Can it be said that our personality affects our health?

Be positive

A study conducted at the University of North Carolina (USA) by Janice Williams sheds light on the role that anger plays in health. For five years she followed a group of people and observed that those who were irritable, cynical and hostile were more likely to suffer from cardiovascular deficiencies.

One of the conclusions that the researchers reached was that personality influenced day-to-day habits. For example, the consumption of alcohol, tobacco or drugs was more common among the most impulsive and aggressive individuals.

However, once the data was analyzed in detail, it was concluded that the connection between personality and character is relatively complex. In fact, among people whose bad habits were evenly matched, The poor health of cholerics was more pronounced

On the other hand, Laura Kubzansky, a professor at Harvard University, has carried out several investigations on the tendency towards optimism or pessimism and its connection with physical health. Her conclusion is very forceful: negativity is bad for your health. The data collected from her studies based on observing groups for decades demonstrate that People who perceive their future with shadows are more likely to suffer from diseases regardless of the material conditions of life and purchasing power.

Crystal Heart

The cardiovascular system It is a fundamental element when studying different personality types.

At the end of the 20th century, Meyer Friedman and Ray H. Rosenman intuited that there could be a correlation between cardiac risk and certain behavioral patterns. The people most prone to heart attacks were stressed and impatient individuals (type A personality).

Why do these types of people have a higher heart risk? Once again, there is no single cause. The neurologist Redford Williams unifies two possibilities in his theories: individuals with type A biochemistry, added to a bad routine, are more likely to suffer a heart attack. According to Williams, people with this profile constantly secrete stress hormones such as cortisol, and their blood pressure and heart rate often rise.

The limits of the mind

But you don’t have to fall into the trap. Susan Sontag, writer of the book The Illness and the Metaphors of It, tells us about the headaches that simplistic theories caused her who interpret the mental as a superpower capable of controlling everything

Numerous self-help books and writings are based on non-scientific data, a fact that has popularized the idea that illnesses are nothing more than a manifestation of problems with the spirit.

Thus, in much literature based on pseudoscience it is insisted that there is a connection between a less assertive personality and the disease. Sontag reminds us of the danger of the sacralization of the mental: if we think that the psychic can control everything and that it is above matter, we will continually feel frustrated and overwhelmed.

Taking it for granted that the spirit completely dominates the world is a waste of time and effort, since the influence of the psychic on the physical is often diffuse and difficult to control.

Of course we have to take care of the way we think, but we have to accept that percentage of chance and contingency that is so difficult to cope with today.