Something Else to Fret About; Worrying can kill you

Neuroticism--the enduring tendency to experience negative emotional states--has consistently been shown to increased mortality. It almost seems unfair that neurotics, who already experience more than their share of anxiety, anger, guilt, and depression, have one more thing to stress about, it's killing them.

By definition, people with a heavy dose of neuroticism do not handle stress well, and are often anxious and moody. Purdue University psychologist Daniel Mroczek asked whether this inherited trait of negativity is a death sentence or can people with this propensity change their destiny?

As reported in the May issue of Psychological Science, middle aged men who increased over time in measures of neuroticism had "a ticket to an early grave." As they got more and more stressed, worried or fretful, this downward spiral increased their risk for dying, mostly from cancer and heart disease. But if they were able to gain control of their temperament, they could obtain survival rates similar to those of emotionally stable men.

The point of this report isn't to put additional stress on men suffering from depression or to tell them to just snap out of it or else. Instead it's to show the that the well-established link between this personality trait and resulting health outcomes can be broken and the improved survival rates that are possible by getting their neuroticism under control.

neuroticism

Source: Science Daily reporting on a press release from the Association for Psychological Science.