Stress And Heart Disease
What does too much stress do to your heart?
Stress in itself is not unhealthy. Stress is just your body’s response to any physical or emotional demand. But too much unrelieved stress can lower your body’s resistance to disease, contribute to disorders such as stomach ailments and insomnia, and may cause changes in the body’s chemistry that can directly affect your heart health.
The stress response is your body’s physical reaction to a stressful situation. You’ve probably heard it called the “fight or flight” response. The physical changes that occur are designed to help your body survive an attack—to stay and fight, or to flee from the threat. When your body reacts to stress, it produces more adrenaline (a stimulant), your heart rate and respiration increase and your blood pressure rises. Fatty acids and cholesterol are emptied into the blood stream, and the blood itself becomes thicker. Muscles tense and prepare for action. When the stressful situation is relieved, your body relaxes and these processes reverse themselves.
Unfortunately, many of us live stress-ridden lives: one stressful situation is followed almost immediately by another, with little or no time to relax and allow our stress response to “shut off.” Constant, unrelieved stress means that the heart remains over-taxed indefinitely and blood pressure, cholesterol and fat levels in the blood remain elevated. All of these conditions are known to cause arterial damage, which increase the likelihood of developing coronary artery disease, a major risk factor for heart attack.
The key to reducing stress and heart disease risk is not in eliminating all stress, but rather in learning how to manage your response to stressful situations. Managing stress also means learning how to relax following stressful periods so that your body has a chance to recover. Begin by identifying the stressful situations in your life and considering what you can do to influence them. Can you avoid them? Can you learn to accept the situations you can’t change? When you find yourself in a stressful situation, practice stress-reduction techniques. One time-honored technique that virtually anyone can do is deep breathing. By concentrating on breathing slowly and deeply, you can literally counteract your body’s stress response. If you need help in learning to mange stress, ask your healthcare professional for a referral. When you learn to manage stress, you’ll be happier, and your heart will be healthier.
Information taken from Parley International Health Education literature.