1. Stress Damages Your Cardiovascular System
Emotional stress can elevate your heart rate, increase your blood pressure, and flood your system with stress hormones, including epinephrine, also known as adrenaline. All of these things increase the work load on your heart.
2. The Possible Outcomes of Stress on Your Heart
Even if you have only the very beginnings of heart disease, the result of stress can be a heart attack, sudden death, heart failure, or an abnormal heart rhythm. Some people experience spasms of the arteries in the heart during stressful periods. If you already know that you have heart disease, your doctor has probably advised you to learn how to manage your stresses and to avoid high-stress situations when at all possible.
3. Acute Versus Chronic Stress
Acute stress comes on suddenly. Chronic stress occurs over the long term in response to a situation you may not be able to escape easily. It seems that both kinds of stress have similar effects on the cardiovascular system, especially by increasing heart rate and blood pressure.
4. Many Different Types of Stress Hurt Your Heart
If you have an automobile accident, you may experience a period of extreme stress even if you're not hurt. This is an example of acute stress. Other situations are similarly dramatic and might include getting caught in a bank during a hold-up or witnessing another person's medical emergency. Or, you may experience severe, acute stress in a less dramatic but equally upsetting situation like running into an ex, missing a flight at the airport, or arguing with your teenager.
Chronic stress may be more subtle but just as damaging. Examples of chronic stress include family and marital difficulties, financial crises, night work or shift work, physical illness, and even severe loneliness. Many people find themselves caught between caring for children at the same time they become responsible for aging parents. Job stress is another cause of serious chronic stress. In fact, people who have already had one heart attack are at higher risk of another one if they experience chronic job strain.
5. Stress Causes Broken Heart Syndrome?
Occasionally, people experience heart attack symptoms after hearing very bad news, but an EKG indicates that the person has not had a heart attack. No blood clots or blockages are present in the coronary arteries. But an imaging study done at the same time may show that the heart has ballooned up in size. Doctors think that stress hormones released when the person hears bad news cause the heart to enlarge. About 90 percent of cases of broken heart syndrome occur in women, and most of them are older than 50. Fortunately, almost all of them recover quickly and without medical treatment, although some people benefit from a diuretic or other, similar medications. Eventually, the heart returns to its normal size with no harm done. But it's still a potent reminder of what stress can do to our bodies.
