Type D Personality
by Royce Bailey M.D., M.P.H., F.A.A.C.
-A Risk Factor For Heart Disease
“A merry
heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the
bones.” Prov 22:17
Solomon
must have realized that there are people with un-merry hearts.
What’s A Type D Personality?
High levels of worry, irritability, gloom, anger and lack of self assurance are strongly associated with both hypertension and heart disease. Psychiatrists classify the highest distress levels as a “D” type personality (like Eeyore of A.A. Milne’s “Winnie the Pooh.” type). The D type personality is less responsive to treatment and has a poorer quality of life. They are more likely to die prematurely.
The ABC Of Personality
The first attempt to link personality to a medical risk was in the 1960s and 1970s. Psychologists devised a short alphabet to describe different tendencies. Type A’s, the weekend-working perfectionists, were deemed likely candidates for heart disease. Relaxed, noncompetitive Type B’s were supposed to be models of health. And Type C’s, outwardly pleasant people who avoided conflict by suppressing their feelings, were said to be cancer-prone. The ABC model for disease and death fell apart in the 1980s when large studies found no reliable connection between the Type A personality and heart disease. Later research has shown that harmful emotions, such as anxiety, anger, hostility and hopelessness, are truly life threatening. The D type personality has given researchers an easy way to measure several injurious emotions all at once.
The Results Of The Type D Test
Professor Johan Denollet of Tillburg University, Netherlands (the inventor of this test) found of the 300 people in the cardiac rehabilitation program given this test (see other side), within 10 years, 27% of the Type D patients had died of heart disease or stroke; when compared to 7 percent of the others. Again, when the Type D questionnaire was given to 875 patients who had recently received coated stents to open their coronary arteries, the type D patients were more than four times more likely than the other patients to experience a heart attack or death within six to nine months after the procedure.
What If You’re A Type D Personality?
This isn’t a parlor game, but it’s worth playing. Don’t panic if you score at the high end of the scale. A Type D personality is not a mental illness. It is a collection of normal fallen human traits. Through Christ all inherited and cultivated tendencies to evil can be over come. Do you believe that? A good marriage can be an antidote to social inhibition, especially if your partner’s ease with people compensates for your own discomfort. Even the most distress prone person can learn to cope with stress and beat back anxious thoughts. Many Type D people have trouble seeking help, by definition, they’re ill-at-ease and afraid to open up, but family, friends, church family and their physicians can help overcome these barriers.
The Plan For Treatment Of Type D Personalities
Even if you never conquer your distress, you can take practical steps to make it less toxic to your health. Exercise increases your happy hormones in your brain. Eating a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables can reduce almost anyone’s risk of a heart attack. Lifestyle changes that protect your heart can improve your emotional state. Warding off emotional distress by prayer, Bible study and talk therapy with a friend can help prevent Satan from using your Type D personality to get the best of you.
The Mind Of Satan
“How Satan exults when he is enabled to set the soul into a white heat of anger! A glance, a gesture, an intonation, may be seized upon and used, as the arrow of Satan, to wound and poison the heart that is open to receive it.” Our High Calling 235
The Mind Of Christ
“And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul.” Acts 4:32 “Every Christian saw in his brother the divine similitude of benevolence and love. One interest prevailed. One object swallowed up all others. All hearts beat in harmony. The only ambition of the believers was to reveal the likeness of Christ’s character.” Christ Object Lessons 121
Reference:
The New Frontiers Of Medicine,