Historically, we've been concerned about the classic Type A personality - combative, time-driven people who literally push themselves to heart attacks. But now doctors are looking at a new category, Type D, as in "distressed." Type D personalities demonstrate negative feelings about vitually everything. In other words, the glass is always half empty, never half full.

We've known that negative emotions, particularly depression, significantly increase the risk of developing heart disease while lowering long-term survival of cardiac patients. But new studies suggest that pessimistic people, "negative thinkers" who worry over trivial, everyday events, are four times more likely to have a heart attack than more positive thinkers. In addition, people who become easily worried over small problems are who continually bottle up their distress are far more likely to die during a heart attack than people who handle stress more easily and who express their emotions openly.
1 | Left by Anon | Jul. 19, 2010 at 12:13pm