Premature Health Complications in the Type A Personality

As we all know, there are certain personality types that tend to feel greater distress in their lives. For the most part, the type A personality is an individual who often physiologically and psychologically responds to the stressors in their lives and, as a result, experiences a more prevalent set of health conditions with aging. But, what makes these health conditions form in the Type A overly stressed individual?

First, let's look at the common health conditions that develop, prematurely, in the Type A personality. Heart disease is believed to be a leading cause of health complications in the Type A personality with many experiencing an increase in blood cholesterol levels, a decrease in the output or ability to decrease cholesterol levels and an increased risk for the platelets to bind to the walls of the veins and arteries.

When these physiological complications are present, the arteries begin to clog and the ultimate result may lead the Type A personality to develop a significant level of heart disease as early as 30 years of age.

Compounding this complication is the connection of stress directly to high blood pressure which, in turn, places additional stress upon the heart, also leading to heart disease in the young adult. What we see here, then, is that we, the Type A overly stressed adult, are the key influencers of our risk for heart disease, absent diet, exercise or hereditary factors.

The culprit behind most of what we see in the Type A personality lies in the deregulation of stress hormones. Because the body is not naturally equipped to handle a full state of stress and the plethora of stress hormones consistently, our organs are unable to function properly. As a result, the body can not adequately control cholesterol levels, platelet binding or blood pressure. Even when stress is intermittent, the Type A individual may, eventually, struggle with heart disease simply due to their body's own defense mechanisms and inability to control or regulate stress hormones following a series of deregulated events.

As a Type A individual, especially in early adulthood, we often do not feel the full effect of our stress levels physiologically. While migraines and ulcers may be our main culprit of the decade, for many heart disease is in the making. It is during these early years of our careers and family development that we are at the greatest level of stress but also at the greatest risk for developing heart disease early due to the physiological connection between hormones and cholesterol.