Your health depends on your personality type (science proves it).

Our way of being and perceiving things influences the risk of suffering from diseases.

There are many authors and scientific researchers who affirm that the type of personality directly or indirectly affects our physical health..

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

Can the personality of each individual influence his or her health?

Some people maintain an admirable firmness and fortitude in the face of exceptionally hard situations, having all the factors against them. On the other hand, there are individuals who, even though they have everything in their favor, are prone to health problems.

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

Muhammad Ali

The most famous fighter 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 made him champion twice more, earning him the nickname "The Greatest of All Time".

2. Nelson Mandela

The former South African president spent more than 30 years in prison with restrictions harsher than ordinary prisonersMandela maintained a very positive attitude that led him to become president of his country and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1993.

The link between the way of being and physical wellbeing

Already in antiquity, the Greek Hippocrates and the Roman Galen classified human beings into four psychological types, each susceptible to specific health problems. four psychological types, each of which is susceptible to specific health problems.

For example, choleric people, according to ancient medicine, tend to be self-sufficient and ambitious, and this makes them prone to heart problems or easy weight loss/weight gain.

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

Scientific experts continue to search for correlations between personality traits and types of disease, and thus develop hypotheses in order to conclude whether these associations are due to a common biological basis or whether one factor is the cause of the other. But... Is it possible to affirm that our personality affects our health?

Being 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 drawn by the researchers was that personality influenced day-to-day habits. For example, the consumption of alcohol, tobacco or drugs was more common among the more impulsive and aggressive individuals.

However, once the data were 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 the choleric was more pronounced..

On the other hand, Laura Kubzansky, a professor at Harvard University, has carried out several studies on the tendency to optimism or pessimism and its link with physical health. Her conclusion is quite blunt: negativity is bad for health. The data collected from his studies, based on observing groups over decades, show that people who perceive their future with shadows are more likely to suffer from illnesses, regardless of the material conditions of life.regardless of material living conditions and purchasing power.

Glass heart

The cardiovascular system is a fundamental element in the study of different personality types.

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

Why do these types of people have a higher cardiac risk? Once again, there is no single cause. Neurologist Redford Williams unifies in his theories two possibilities: 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 don't fall into the trap. Susan Sontag, writer of the book Illness and its Metaphors, tells us about the headaches she got from simplistic theories that interpret the mental as a superpower capable of controlling everything..

Numerous self-help books and writings are based on unscientific 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 less assertive personality and illness. 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 be constantly frustrated and overwhelmed.

To take 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 hard to cope with nowadays.