Many are the authors and scientific researchers who claim that the personality type directly or indirectly affects our physical health .

There are different ways of being that increase or decrease the probability of suffering from some kind of illness, 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 strength in the face of exceptionally hard situations, having all the factors against them. On the other hand, we find individuals who, even when they have everything going for them, are prone to 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 wear.

1. 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 personality and perseverance made him a champion twice over, 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 more severe restrictions than ordinary prisoners , forced to crush stone, deprived of visits and communication by ordinary mail, Mandela 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 well-being

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

For example, choleric people, according to ancient medicine, are often self-sufficient and ambitious, and that means they are prone to heart problems or lose weight easily.

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

Expert scientists continue to search for correlations between personality traits and disease types, and thus develop hypotheses to conclude whether these associations are due to a common biological basis or whether one factor causes the other. But…Can we say 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 the researchers drew was that personality influences everyday habits. For example, alcohol, tobacco or drug use was more common among more impulsive and aggressive individuals.

However, after a detailed analysis of the data, it was concluded that the connection between personality and character is relatively complex. In fact, among people whose bad habits were equal, the bad health of the cholera sufferers was more pronounced .

On the other hand, Laura Kubzansky, professor at Harvard University, has developed several investigations on the tendency to optimism or pessimism and its link with physical health.Her conclusion is very clear: negativity is bad for health. The data gathered from her 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 and purchasing power.

Crystal Heart

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

In the late 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 are these people at greater risk of heart disease? Again, there is no single cause. The neurologist Redford Williams unifies in his theories two possibilities: individuals with type A biochemistry, added to bad routine, have more chances of suffering a heart attack. According to Williams, people with that profile constantly secrete stress hormones such as cortisol, and their blood pressure and heart rate often rise.

The limits of the mind

But let’s not fall into the trap. Susan Sontag, writer of the book The Disease 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 books and writings on self-help are based on non-scientific data, which has popularized the idea that diseases are nothing more than a manifestation of problems with the spirit.

Thus, many pseudoscience-based literature insists that there is a connection between less assertive personality and 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 feel frustrated and continually 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 hard to bear nowadays.