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Personality Rules
By
H. Bernard Wechsler |
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Personality Type?
We taught two separate classes recently, one with kids (12-15), and the other
executives at a Fortune 500 airline corporation. Here’s the connection – we inquired of the kids – ‘Do you experience stress much in you daily life?’
One hundred percent of the hands were raised. They expanded on their vote
and told about parents and teachers making them paranoid about tests in general,
and the SATs specifically. “Your future; tests determine your life”, parents and teachers threatened.
The look in their young eyes and body language communicated chronic stress – the kind Thomas Paine was addressing in “Crisis” when he wrote, “These are the times
that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis,
shrink from the service to his country…” Christmas 1776, Battle of Trenton.
The class of corporate executives agreed. All raised their hands to confirm their career was stress-filled, and anxiety continued when they arrived home.
They really freaked when I mentioned a new (1.11.08) research report indicating a 30-40% higher likelihood of dying during the nine-year study, directly related to men experiencing chronic stress.
Cortisol The Stress Hormone
Cortisol in small doses has some positive effects. It triggers improved memory,
maintains your comfort zone, and even increases your immune system function.
Chronic stress causes large doses of cortisol which inhibits your thinking, planning, and organizing. It raises your blood pressure, lowers your immunity
and appears to be responsible for lousy inflammatory responses.
It gets worse, it suppresses your thyroid, decreases bone density and muscle tissue, and is not a blessing for your cardiac system.
Back to the good side of cortisol, it is a evolutionary defense system to danger, and
flows when your mind-and-body experiences the ‘fight-or-flight’ syndrome. It works
as a survival and self-preservation program.
Hyper-Stress Culture
Do you suspect many folks reading this page live a rural life? Rural living and its associations with peace and quiet and a stress-free existence, are a thing of a
past century. Urban and even suburban life are strongly competitive, highly organized and require personal discipline to survive.
Personality And Self-Control
A study from Northwestern University reduces personality types to just two.
You are either ‘promotion-focused’, living to achieve your hopes and aspirations,
or ‘prevention-focused’, with your primary need for ‘safety and security’.
How about ‘fear-of-loss’ verses ‘desire for gain’. Would you jump out of bed to make money at 3am, or turn over and get your beauty rest? How about a call that your office had been burglarized and your presence is required at 3am?
Forget what folks say, we choose to protect what we have, compared to improving
our wealth.
Questions
Dr. Jiewen Hong, Northwestern University concludes, folks who choose Goal-Pursuing (going-for-the gold) strategies, are better able to exercise self-control
because it ‘fits’ with their personality.
The same applies about exercising self-control when ‘prevention’ (safety and security) ‘fits’ with the strategy they have chosen. Know your personality and
choose what makes you feel comfortable. If not you get stressed out.
Ask yourself: What are the things to do to cause your experiences to be successful?
What are the things to do to cause your experiences to avoid
going badly?
The objective is not to live your days with ‘nonfit’ because it creates chronic stress.
History
The medical theory that stress causes coronary heart disease has been accepted
since the 1950s. Dr. Hans Selye, a Canadian scientist is called the father of stress
theory since the early 1920s. He said chronic stress untreated, caused cancer,
most diseases, and stroke. We believe it, yet do not change our lifestyle.
When you and I mentally visualize stress, it consists of big-stuff, like losing your
significant-other or a child to disease, accident or murder. Losing your livelihood
because your company moves your job to India, or the loss of all your
wealth on Wall Street, are examples of what most of us call major stress.
The contrary is the reality – constant small irritants including aggressive neighbors,
argumentative co-workers, and commuting for three hours daily, ‘try men’s souls’.
Executives
Remember that research project by the University of California about executives
having a higher likelihood of dying 30-40% more, if they are chronically stressed?
The study followed 735 men over two-decades, and those who were physically and
psychologically chronically stressed at their workplace, cashed-in their chips
way earlier than executives who had strategies to overcome stress.
About heart-disease: individuals who had early life experiences with neglect,
living in foster homes, abuse, and loss of parents, were three-times more likely
to suffer heart disease. Maternal behavior towards offspring – nurturing – is
highly stressful. It is not simply a matter of genetics.
Google: Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 1.07.08, Stress and Cardiac
Disease.
Coda: Anger, hostility and Type A behavior cause depression and stress.
“There is a connection between the heart and the head,” Dr. Nieca Goldberg,
NYU School of Medicine, and spokesperson for the American Heart Association.
Endwords
Lifestyle changes, even minor ones, can add up to 14 years to your longevity.
The University of Cambridge suggested, infrequent alcohol consumption,
exercise, no smoking, and daily ingestion of five fruits or veggies. We have
found many neuroscientists who would add lifelong learning to maintain your
cognitive maps.
Would it help you to read-and-remember three (3) books, articles, and reports
compared to your peers who can hardly finish one?
Ask us how.
See ya,
copyright © 2008
H. Bernard Wechsler
www.speedlearning.org
hbw@speedlearning.org
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Author's Bio
Author of Speed Reading For Professionals, published by Barron's;
business partner of Evelyn Wood, creator of speed reading,
graduating 2 million including the White House staffs of four
U.S. Presidents.
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