How can my personality type affect my health?

Our personality types can affect our health based on how we perceive and cope with stress; knowing your personality type can help with prevention. Watch psychiatrist Sudeepta Varma, MD, explain the personality types and how they can impact health.

Transcript

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Type C bottle things up, but at the same time, they're people pleasers. So if the doctor tells them what to do, they might be more likely to follow it.

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A personality type can affect our health based on how we perceive stress and how do we cope with it. So type A personality type are always in a rush

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and they're are in a hurry, and they generally are extremely stressful-- lead stressful lives. They tend to have ulcers and asthma and headaches

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as a result of being neurotic. Type B personalities are laid back and easygoing and cheerful and may neglect their health.

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Type C bottle things up but at the same time, they're people pleasers. So if the doctor tells them what to do, they might be more likely to follow it.

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And type D also bottles things up, is chronically pessimistic, and they're also at risk of heart attacks as a result of it.

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And I wanna say that all of these are sort of risk factors. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to have these things, but knowing which personality type you're in can

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help you prevent some of it. And there are also some positive associations, so that type A, being that they're so neurotic,

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are also very conscientious about their health and might live longer because they take better care of themselves. Classically people don't fit into one of the four.

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They predominantly have characteristics that may place them in a higher probability of being in either A or B, and then they might

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have subtypes or other qualities that feature C and D. So most people fall into one of the two major ones

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and then have elements of either C and D in there. Depending on which personality type you're in, you might be at risk for behaviors or health

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risks associated with one of those categories. [AUDIO LOGO]