STRESS AND PERSONALITY

1. Every person has a distinct personality of his own. This is acquired over a period of time during initial stages of life and depends upon the education, environment, family background and experiences. We often describe people as ambitious, pessimist, optimist, sadist, happy-go-lucky, serious, jovial etc. All these are based on the responses of the individual to certain given situations. Analysis and Effects of Stress on Various Personalities

2. You analyse yourself as a personality yourself and have yourself slotted.

3. Ambitious Types. The ambitious types are particularly liable to get the physical diseases of stress, i.e. Peptic Ulcer, Coronary heart disease, migraine and high blood pressure. The ambitious persons are generally in control of their emotions and mental stress is not very common. Feelings of anger, irritability, nervousness and depression are sometimes noticed in these people, but they quickly suppress the same. The stress thus has its main impact on the body.

4. The Worrying Types. The worrying types are more likely to have mental stress. The reactions of the nervous system which we all feel occasionally, happens very frequently with them. These people are less likely to develop the physical diseases of stress, although they do more often than the placid types.

5. Placid Types. Placid types show the least harmful stress. This is predictable, because they are seekers of stability, not of change, and happiest when few demands are made on them. They experience less stress in all its forms, both healthy and harmful, than the other types and so suffer much less from its ill effect.

6. Conscientious Types. The conscientious types who like to have their entire life organized in advance, suffer stress if they are repeatedly made to undergo changes which are beyond their control. They generally show both the mental and physical stress, but generally tend towards the latter. Their high principles and strong sense of duty often lead to greater stress than in other types of personalities.

7. Carefree Types. The carefree types are the closest to the placid types and have a much lower predisposition to harmful stress. But their desire for variety and excitement may lead them into potentially harmful situations. They are more likely to have accidents because they take risks in all spheres of life. They generally lack foresight and do things which fulfill their need for excitement because of the risks involved.

8. The Dependable Types. The dependable types are more likely to have mental consequences of harmful stress. They do not like being alone and any prolonged isolation is unpleasant for them. They express their feelings readily, which may at times sound exaggerated. They are likely to respond to the ups and downs of life with appropriate displays of emotions.

9. The Suspicious Types. The suspicious types, like the dependable types, are more likely to have the mental consequences of harmful stress, but under different circumstances. They prefer being alone and are most distressed when forced to rub shoulders with many people, particularly when there is no opportunity to avoid them.

10. The stress which is actively desired by the dependable types is harmful to the suspicious types because it reinforces their worries and suspicions and shows in both the mental and physical spheres. Such people prefer a few people around them whom they can trust absolutely; the rest of humanity is their potential enemy.

11. Each one of us has an ideal level of stress which satisfies us. Below this level we get bored and above it we feel under strain. Different personalities have different levels of stress. The ambitious ones have the highest level and the placid types the lowest. The worrying and the suspicious types have moderately low levels. The dependable and the conscientious types have moderately high ones. It is thus impossible for all personality types to be satisfied under same situations.