The High Blood Pressure Personality.
Edwin was a prosperous self-made businessman, successful in the world’s
eyes. At fifty-four, he was a top man in a large firm the he and his three partners owned. They had built it from scratch. The partners did not got along smooth with one another, but they together for business reasons. How they did argue with one another!
Edwin tried to be pleasant when the senior partner or a customer made suggestions to him. But inwardly he boiled. He would have trouble going to sleep that night because he was still brooding over the incident.
He began to have a buzzing noise in his ears, a few dizzy spells, and an occasional headache. Edwin’s
physical said that it was a high blood
pressure and sent Edwin to an expert; the expert reported that Edwin’s high blood pressure was due to emotional tensions. Edwin had started on the road to high blood pressure as a boy. He had been bossed too much by his parents and developed a hostile attitude towards being bossed.
An attitude of resentment toward authority figures is the keynote of the personality that boils over and causes high blood pressure. Some specialists suggest that the individual feels constantly threatened and therefore to constantly tense, guarding himself.
People who cannot stand being bossed are candidates fro the high blood-pressure squad. On the surface, they may be gentle, generous, model workers. But many people who appear to be calm are seething inwardly. When such person finally explodes, his friends say, “I didn’t think that Edwin was the least bit nervous; isn’t it awful!”
The fidgety, jumpy, high-strung, nail biting, worried person shows his tenseness in outward behavior. But many others feel the same way but conceal it. The hostile feelings that have been suppressed for years gradually build up dangerous pressure in arteries and veins.
A domineering boss may arouse hostility in anyone and boost that person’s blood pressure. But even a model boss may boost a worker’s pressure. But even a model boss may boost a worker’s pressure if the worker has pent-up attitudes against being bossed. Such people feel intensely frustrated when told to do anything, no matter how mildly they are told. They can get along with anyone-except a boss.
People with high blood pressure personalities are hard workers, but it is not the hard work that causes the trouble. The hard work is a symptom of the underlying resentment- a sort of working off anger.
There are many physical causes of high blood pressure that have nothing to do with emotions and personality. Kidney disease, hardening of the arteries, tumors, and other physical problems will make blood pressure shoot upward. Suppressed rage can make the disease worse when there are such physical causes. But suppressed rage can also cause the ailment when there is no physical problem.
Emotional factors seem to produce another disease that affects the blood vessels. In Raynaud’s disease (an ailment affecting children and young adults more than businessmen) the small arteries constrict in spasms, cutting off circulation in fingers and toes. The digits turn alternately white and bluish or reddish. If the constriction continues over a period, swelling may result and gangrene may set in.
For some time, it has been known that emotional upsets were usually responsible for this ailment. A recent theory is that the disease may be caused by one specific sort of emotional upset- the desire to take hostile physical action, such as hitting or strangling, and the repression of that desire. In consequence, circulation in the fingers that might have done the strangling is upset. Another reason for friendly rather than hostile thoughts.