How Stress Affects The Heart

Doctors know that physical stress and harm the heart. Studies suggest that mental stress is also a trigger for angina pain, heart attacks, and abnormal heart arrhythmias. Stress is a major cause of serious heart related problems. Sudden death may be a result of consistent stress.

How does stress affect the heart? Sudden stress can cause the heart to pump faster and arteries constrict, blocking the flow of blood to the heart. Those people who already have a problem with heart rhythm can experience serious problems with heart rhythms because of emotional stress. Irregular heart rhythms can cause rapidly changing heart patterns and other serious heart problems.

Stress also makes the blood stickier, maybe in response to the threat of a potential threat of physical harm. This increases the chances of an artery being clogged because of a blood clot.

Stress can give you heart pains. You may find yourself in the emergency room with heart attack symptoms and it may be a stress or anxiety attack. It is reliefs to find out you don't have serious heart problems, but a stress in itself just being in the cardiac care unit for observation. You will normally be watched for up to 24 hours to insure you do not have any other complications. If you experience any tightness in the chest or chest pain, a doctor should see you. It may turn out to be a panic or stress attack, but it could mean you have other more serious heart problems.

Stress may also tell the body to release more fat into the bloodstream. This will temporarily raise blood cholesterol levels. It may also reduce the estrogen level in women. Estrogen is essential for a woman's heart health.

Stress may also reduce levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. This may affect men and women who are at higher risk of depression and anger. It causes the immune system to produce cytokines, a protein that causes inflammation and damage to the body's cells, including the heart cells. Reduced amounts of serotonin cause depressive episodes, anger, and anxiety or panic.

Studies recently completed confirm the connection between stress and high blood pressure. If you have mental stress that regularly increases your blood pressure, you may have injuries to the inner linings of the blood vessels. Those patients who were at the highest level of the stress scale were twice as likely to develop high blood pressure. Men seem to be affected the most, but women with continuous stress also had high blood pressure problems.

Stress is an important part of your physical and emotional health. If you are able to reduce your stress level, you will increase your chances of living a longer and healthier life. Report to your doctor any inability to control the stress level in your life. He has ways of helping you cope and handle stress. He may prescribe a drug that will help you get through the crisis, or tell you other ways to reduce stress. Don't be complacent. Stress can be a killer!

Next article: Using Meditation To Help Reduce Stress

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