Almost everyone in this world has experienced stress because of different reasons. However, there are some cases where people have gone through enough stress to make them feel that it can actually kill them.

Keep this aside, the real question here is can stress actually affect your lifespan and cause death causing health problems. There are some researches which concludes that stress can actually have a negative impact on your lifespan.

When the psychological stress in high, then it can cause different health problems related to your hearts, blood pressure, and can cause stroke as well.

You can consider stress in the same category as other factors which can cause heart related health problems like:

• Physical inactivity
• High blood pressure
• Obesity
• High cholesterol
• Smoking

Today we will be looking at what connection does stress has with your heart health.

Effect of stress on our body

Before we get into the details, you should know that stress is something which is not completely a bad thing as it can be beneficial in certain situations.

A great example to back this, is short term stress which can give you that additional energy boost to make sure you finish your work right before the deadline while increasing the attention span. Apart from this, short term stress can be beneficial when you are going to speak to a group of people. You can also be stressed during happy situations as well, like after achieving something you are working from a long time.

However, things start to take negative turn when this stress in in excess amount and is caused in a neutral situation, this is where it starts to impact your heart health.

There are different factors which can cause chronic stress like health problems, financial problems, unemployment, relationships, etc.

Here are a few things which you might feel during unwanted stressful events:

• Anxiety
• Agony
• Depression
• Irritability
• Rumination

There are different causes of stress and not every other person will have a similar cause or experience.

Symptoms of chronic stress:

• Low energy
• Upset stomach
• Headaches
• Tense muscles
• Insomnia

When you are suffering from chronic stress, then it can also make you loss control of different emotions which leads to having multiple mood swings.

During chronic stress it can also make you brain think that you are in a fearful or dangerous situation which leads to the activation of fight-or-flight mode even if in reality you are not in a threatful situation. During these false situations our brain tend to send stress hormones known as cortisol in our bloodstream. If this increase of stress hormone happens a lot of time, then it can lead to different health problems like:

• High blood pressure
• High level of inflammation
• Negatively affects the blood flow towards your heart
• Increases chances of heart attack

Can stress increase the chances of heart attack?

There are different body parts which can be affected due to stress and the most fragile one is your heart. As per a study in 2021 which consisted of more than 800 patients suffering from an underlying heart disease concluded that when the blood flow towards the heart is reduced, then it can cause heart attack and other heart related health problems. Apart from this, the researchers also recorded how the heart responds to different types of stress.

The mental and physical stress which these patients had was standard in everyone to make sure the tests results are more accurate.

The result of this study also concludes that mental stress had a great impact on how our heart performs as compared to physical stress.

Patients who had higher mental stress were closer to getting a minor heart attack or other heart related health problems as compared to patients who had physical stress.

In simple words, mental stress has a great effect on our heart and can increase the chances of heart related problems like heart attack in the coming future.

Effect of brain on your heart

The main part of our brain responsible for releasing stress hormones is amygdala and it is popularly known as the fear centre of our brain.

Whenever you are in a stressful situation or just feeling anxious, then amygdala just wakes up and starts releasing a lot of stress hormones to prepare our body for any fight or flight situation. During this situation the blood flow towards your heart is also reduced which also reduces the level of nutrients your heart gets like oxygen.

This might sound like a bad thing but if you are actually in a very stressful and life-threatening situation, then this step is important because it helps in preparing your body for any actions which can save your life.

However, if your brain gets your body in such phase during a normal situation, then this is where things start to take a negative turn. When your body gets into such stiaution without any proper threat, then it can lead to different health problems like:

• High blood pressure
• Swelling in your arteries
• High body fat
• High level of insulin resistance

All of these factors can have a negative impact on your overall heart health and can lead to heart attack and stroke. There was a study done in 2020 which concluded that the risk factor for heart attack caused by stress is actually similar to other factors like obesity, bad diet, and lack of physical activity.

Therefore, people who suffer from chronic stress are advised to improve their lifestyle, diet choices, and have some type of physical activity. In case of obesity or just overweight, try to bring your weight in the healthy region because it will just act as a catalyst for heart attack and stroke.