Can stress cause high blood pressure? | Zyla Health
Stress is a normal part of life. As hard as it is to imagine, our stress responses have been responsible for keeping us alive. It has kept us safe from predators, kept us aware and alert of threats.
In today’s world, however, we aren’t being chased by lions anymore, but we do have to worry about deadlines, our health issues or our family’s wellbeing etc.
Stress is a feeling of emotional and physical tension which affects our health in many ways. In a short time period, stress can be positive, such as when it helps to meet a deadline. But when stress remains untreated for a long time, it may harm your health.
One such way is that stress can cause your Blood Pressure (BP) to rise, and these repeated increases in BP can have long-lasting effects on your body.
We are going to take a look at stress, how your BP can be linked to stress as well as introduce a few lifestyle changes to help improve your long term health by tackling these two issues.
Let us learn more about stress and what you can do to deal with it.
What is stress?
Stress is your body’s reaction to any kind of change or loss. It is a type of psychological pain. Our body reacts to situations in three ways — emotional, physical, and mental.
Although stress is normal, sometimes we can get stressed because of our work, health, responsibilities, and even our own thoughts but it affects each one of us in a different way.
We get stressed due to two factors-
1. External factors
This includes:
- Major life changes or traumatic events
- Work or school
- Relationship issues
- Financial problems
- Serious injury or chronic illness
2. Internal factors
This includes:
- Negative thinking
- Lack of motivation in life
- Self-doubt, loneliness
- Inability to accept uncertainty
Now that we know what causes stress, it’s important to recognise what stress looks like, as it can be present differently in every individual.
What are the symptoms of stress?
Stress can affect our lives in many ways, it can cause emotional issues, physical problems, mental issues, and even changes in our behaviours. However, as stress affects each one of us in a different way, the symptoms of stress are different for everyone.
We see 4 types of symptoms of stress:-
1. Mental symptoms:
- Memory problem
- Lack of concentration
- Negative point of view on anything
- Excessive worrying
2. Emotional symptoms:
- Depression and unhappiness
- Nervousness, moodiness or anger
- Feeling overly-emotional
- Low energy and sadness
3. Behavioural symptoms:
- Eating more also known as “stress eating” or eating very less
- Sleeping too much or too little
- Keeping a distance from your loved ones
- Ignoring responsibilities
- Using alcohol, cigarettes or drugs to relax
- Nervous habits like speaking very fast, biting nails or grinding teeth
4. Physical symptoms:
- Body pains
- Digestive problems like diarrhoea or constipation
- Nausea and dizziness
- Chest pain or palpitations (increased heartbeat)
- Frequent uneasiness
- Weak immune system
- Increased blood pressure and blood sugar levels
- Skin conditions like eczema or acne
Since we now have an idea of how stress can manifest itself, it’s important to examine the long term effects of stress on our health!
Did you know?
The CARDIA study found that young adults, who responded to stress, with temporary increases in blood pressure, later on, developed hypertension as adults.
What are the effects of stress?
Getting a little stressed in life is fine, as mentioned earlier, sometimes it helps us avoid danger, be more alert or meet a deadline. Many people can get stressed after an overwhelming traumatic event, but this lasts for a small duration only. This is known as acute stress.
Some people get affected by long term stress, which is also known as chronic stress. Chronic stress can dangerously affect our health and can cause a variety of problems such as:
- Mental problems: Anxiety and depression are seen globally in people suffering from stress.
- Disturbance in the menstrual cycle like irregularity. PCOS is also seen in women as excessive stress causes hormonal imbalance.
- Weight gain and obesity are caused due to hormonal changes or stress eating.
- Weight loss and lack of appetite due to its effects on our metabolism.
- Sexual problems like premature ejaculation, erectile dysfunction, loss of sex drive or infertility.
- Disturbed sleep cycle: oversleeping, disturbed sleep and sleeplessness
- High blood sugar levels and it’s complications
- Increased risk of heart disease like high blood pressure, heart attack etc
- Acne and hair loss
Patients regularly ask their doctors if stress has anything to do with their hypertension (high blood pressure). Let us take a closer look at the link between stress and hypertension.
Can stress cause high blood pressure (BP)?
Our body has fascinating mechanisms that get kicked into gear whenever it feels it is under attack. Here are a few important ways the body tends to react to stressful situations:
1. Hormones
Under stress, your body releases the hormones adrenaline and cortisol in your bloodstream. Cortisol is also known as the “Stress hormone” which causes an increase in BP and heart rate.
It will start your “fight or flight response” which means you either fight the situation or run away from it.
2. Blood vessels
Both these reactions are natural fearful reactions that can make your heart beat faster and harder. Constant increases in Adrenaline also causes damage to blood vessels and reduce the space inside blood vessels for the blood to flow.
3. Plaque formation
Stress can create micro-injuries in the blood vessel, which then causes platelets (circulate normally in the blood) to get deposited and form plaques. Over time, these cause your BP to rise and can even block the major arteries in the heart.
All of these mechanisms repeatedly occur during stressful times, and their effects add up over time to result in hypertension. This much is clear, repeated long term stress has a way of taking a toll on the body, and hypertension is one of them.
Did you know?
Eleven different studies including 5696 participants were analysed and it was found that psychosocial stress was associated with an increased risk of hypertension.
The Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital has conducted research on learning the effect of relaxation techniques on our stress responses. These include deep abdominal breathing, focus on a soothing word visualizing soothing scenes, prayer and yoga
Most of the research has been conducted on people with hypertension and other forms of heart disease. The results suggest these techniques may be worth trying — although for most people it is not a cure-all.
One study was conducted on 122 patients with hypertension, ages 55 and older. After 8 weeks, 34 of the people who practised the relaxation response — a little more than half — had achieved a blood pressure reduction of more than 5 mm Hg. During that second phase, 50% were able to eliminate at least one blood pressure medication.
These findings are very promising and show that with mindful relaxation techniques, we can help reduce the long term effects of stress on blood pressure and heart disease.
What can you do to deal with stress and high BP?
We have seen how closely linked stress responses and BP are! It stands to say that if we understand how to better manage our stress, then we can improve our long term outcomes for hypertension and heart disease.
Let us look at some natural remedies for stress that we can practice, which will help us in managing our stress levels in our day to day life:
1. Meditation
This is an easy and effective habit with a number of benefits. It helps in calming your mind, sleeping better, reducing anxiety, increasing concentration, and much more.
2. Breathe to relax
Take deep and slow breaths, drop your shoulders and straighten your spine because when you breathe slowly and deeply, it sends a message to your brain to calm down. This can help your body relax and deal with stress in a better way.
3. Sleep
Stress affects our sleep and a lack of sleep affects our health. A good sleeping routine restores the body’s energy, improves concentration, and mood.
If your sleep cycle is affected due to stress, you can try relaxation techniques like taking a warm bath, meditating before sleeping in order to get a good night’s rest.
4. Eat right
Multiple nutrients help in natural stress relief. We have listed 3 main nutrients which are present in dairy products, chicken, fish, eggs and various nuts and seeds:
- Methionine: It is a type of protein that protects cells from damage caused by stress.
- Tryptophan: It is also a protein whose deficiency causes anxiety, stress and increase anger.
- B-complex vitamins: They boost mood and energy levels. It is one of the best vitamins for stress relief.
5. Aromatherapy for stress relief
Aromatherapy can be used as a natural remedy to help with anxiety and stress. Topical applications and inhalation are commonly used. Lavender essential oil is an effective choice.
6. Physical activity
Exercises keep your body active and healthy. Along with this, it increases the levels of the anti-stress hormone “Endorphin” which helps in reducing stress. So try to spend some time on any of your favourite physical activities.
7. Talk to someone
Talking to someone you trust about your problems can actually help deal with everything in a better way. It can also help you avoid the feeling of loneliness, help you see the situation more clearly and come up with a solution to deal with it.
8. Seek treatment
You might also need to see a healthcare professional’s help in the treatment of stress through therapy or medication. They may prescribe antidepressants or antianxiety medications for the same. Do not hesitate to seek help.
If you want to know more about hypertension (high BP), you can read our blog, 8 Dietary tips to manage hypertension.
The bottom line is stress is an unavoidable part of our lives. We also know that long term stress can cause a lot of health problems.
We cannot control the events that will add stress to our lives, but through mindful meditation techniques, better sleep habits, self-care techniques and even medication — we can control our reaction to our stress.
It is always important to focus and take action on the things that we can control and change, in order to improve our long term health.
You can also download the Zyla app to enrol yourself on our Healthy heart program. At Zyla, we have doctors, nutritionists, physiotherapists and psychologists providing you personalised care and support during this tough time.
Stay strong! Stay healthy!
Connect with us:
- Subscribe to our Youtube channel: https://bit.ly/2o19OzE to watch videos on health and health-related conditions.
- Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zylahealth
- Join our Facebook community, “Defeating Diabetes” and get daily updates: https://bit.ly/2nloObl
- Find us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zylahealth/
- Visit our website: https://www.zyla.in/
- Talk to us on WhatsApp — https://goo.gl/kjofP
