Stress Personalities

Stress Personalities

Most people find it difficult to define stress, yet they experience it often. In general terms, stress can be defined as an excessive demand on physical and mental energy, often leading to anxiety, anger, distress, fear, irritability and frustration.

This causes an increase in the secretions of pituitary, adrenal and thyroid hormones, and angiotension secretion from the kidneys. All these lead to a rise in the cholesterol level as well as rise in blood pressure, which ultimately result in an increase of fat deposition in the arteries (atherosclerosis), and also coronary heart disease.

There are many situations that can cause stress. Dr. Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe from Washington University Medical School studied a large group of people and developed a scaling system resulting from various stressful events. The death of a spouse was given a score of 100 degrees of stress. The point system as listed on the following pages reflects stress in relative terms only.

There are three ways of dealing with stress:

• - Try to avoid situations which cause stress
• - Change your attitude to situations hitherto regarded as stressful and no longer consider them to be so
• - Divert your mind and learn to relax more to reduce the physical consequences of stress.

KNOW YOUR STRESS PERSONALITY TYPE

Based on the individual health lifestyle, Drs Freedman and Rosemnman have classified most people into two distinct categories. The Type A person, who is always in a hurry, finds himself short of time and wishes to complete all projects by a certain deadline. On the other hand the Type B person, who is much more relaxed, usually has sufficient patience without a sense of urgency. Some people seem to think that unless you are rushing and trying to do things with definite deadlines (Type A), you are not likely to be a successful person. However, some of the top achievers in the world including Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru have been judged as having had Type B personalities.

During a meeting with Dr. Freedman, on his visit to New Delhi York Medical College in 1989, I had an opportunity to ask him about the success and failure rate of people from him about the success and the failure rate of people from Type A and B personalities. Without any hesitation, he confirmed that a Type B person has equal or even better chances of success in life, he is not utilizing all his talents and time in an efficient manner.

What about your own personality type? Are you a Type A person or a Type B person?

You are likely to be a Type A person if the following are applicable to you:
-You are constantly planning and thinking of achieving and accomplishing more and more in less and less time. A chronic sense of time urgency is the hallmark of a Type A personality.
-You almost always eat, walk and do things as quickly as possible.
-You are impatient with the way most other people do things. For example, you may even want to complete the sentence of the other person. In other words, you feel that people around you are just too slow.
-You find it very difficult and almost impossible to wait in a line in the post office, or get into the bus, or on a train.
-You are constantly trying to save time and may, in fact, try to complete two to three activities together. For example, you may read a newspaper or go through your mail while eating your meals.
-You feel guilty about not doing "anything" and relaxing for a few hours or days.
-You strongly believe that all your progress has been primarily due to your aggressive personality, and if you change now, you will be left behind.
-You weigh everything in terms of 'numbers'. Your assessment of others as well as yourself is based only on the amount of money earned.

Your belong to Type B personality, if:
-You sincerely appreciate the virtue of patience.
-You integrate the philosophy of all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, that is, you devote enough time to leisure activities in your life.
-You can relax and do nothing for days and still not become angry and feel guilty about being relaxed.
-You maintain a sense of calmness and security at most time.
-You have none of the characteristics of a Type A personality.

Remember that to be a Type A person, it is not necessary to have all the characteristics described under the Type A personality. If you have more than 50 per cent of the features of the Type A personality, you are most likely, a Type A person. The Type A personality traits are counter productive and harmful for your heart.

It has long been evident that your personality type holds the key to understanding the cause of CHD. Yet, ironically, the very recommendations made by Western cardiologists today to prevent CHD are those that Indians are, increasingly, abandoning...

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