Relationship Between Stress and Cardiovascular Health

Over half of Americans experience stress throughout the day, including people suffering from acute stress, chronic stress, and circumstantial stress. Common sources of stress include marital, financial, and work-related problems.

People suffering from stress may experience its impact on their health in several ways. Common physical symptoms of stress include headaches, insomnia, and high blood pressure. Stress also negatively impacts your heart health. If you’ve been under stress, you can get a preventative medical scan to determine if stress affects your cardiovascular health.

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How Does Stress Affect Cardiovascular Health?

Also known as the circulatory system, your cardiovascular system consists of your heart, arteries, veins, and blood vessels. The cardiovascular system has the crucial task of delivering oxygen and nutrients to your organs.

Your cardiovascular system works with your respiratory system to accomplish this task. It sends blood from your heart to your lungs, where it is oxygenated. Once the blood is oxygenated, your pumping heart pushes the blood along your arteries to your organs. Veins deliver blood back to your heart. Issues with your cardiovascular system can be severe and, in some cases, fatal.

Stress triggers physical responses from your body, such as inflammation. Inflammation is a crucial response when your body is fighting an infection. Still, when it isn’t, it causes systemic issues by reducing the amount of good cholesterol in your body and causing high blood pressure.

Stress also adversely affects your immune system, increasing your risk of health problems. Coping with health challenges can cause prolonged stress, making it more challenging for your body to recover and increasing the risk of cardiovascular issues from stress.

Is There a Well-Documented Relationship Between Stress and Cardiovascular Disease?

Medical studies have established the relationship between stress and cardiovascular health. Both men and women are more likely to suffer a heart attack after multiple divorces, and divorce is a common cause of life stress. Another study established that experiencing the following causes of psychological stress increased the risk of cardiovascular disease:

Childhood abuse
Marital stress
Social isolation
Trauma
Work stress

Research also confirms that people who develop hypertension and have an elevated heart rate because of stress are more likely to have a heart attack.

Can Stress Cause an Enlarged Heart?

Having an enlarged heart can cause severe health issues, including the following:

Arrhythmia
Chest pain
Fainting
Shortness of breath
Swollen belly
Swollen legs
Upper body pain

Common reasons people have an enlarged heart include the following:

Amyloid protein deposits
Anemia
Congenital heart defect
Heart damage
Heart disease
Hemochromatosis
Hypertension
Stress

An enlarged heart can be a temporary or permanent condition. Some people can live with an enlarged heart without issue, depending on the reason for the enlarged heart. Others may need medication or surgery to address the root cause. In some cases, an enlarged heart increases the risk of blood clots, cardiac arrest, and heart failure.

How Does Stress Affect the Respiratory and Cardiovascular Systems?

Your respiratory system has the vital task of drawing in oxygen. Without oxygen, people die. The nose and mouth are the primary parts of the respiratory system and draw in oxygen. Oxygen travels through your throat, larynx, windpipe, and airways to your lungs, which oxygenates your blood. Your cardiovascular system then delivers the oxygenated blood to your organs.

Stress can affect a person’s ability to breathe. When people with respiratory issues, such as asthma and lung disease, have difficulty breathing, the consequences can be severe. These individuals may have a panic attack or start hyperventilating.

When the respiratory system cannot deliver a steady oxygen supply, it impacts your body’s ability to deliver oxygenated blood. When your body can’t deliver oxygenated blood, hypoxia can lead to organ failure.

Your cardiovascular health can also trigger respiratory issues. Causes of hypoxia include heart attack and heart failure.

How Much Stress Can Raise Your Heart Rate?

Stress prompts your heart to beat faster. It doesn’t take much stress to trigger a physical response, but being severely stressed for prolonged periods is more likely to cause long-term health issues than experiencing a few minutes. Whether or not your heart rate increases depends on how much adrenaline, epinephrine, and norepinephrine your body releases as a response to stress.

How Can a Preventative Medical Scan Help?

Schedule a preventative medical scan near your location to get answers about your cardiovascular health. When you choose a preventative medical scan at Preventative Diagnostic Center in Las Vegas, you’ll receive a prompt, thorough scan that delivers the health information you need.

A preventative medical scan can confirm whether you have an enlarged heart, plaque build-up, or other symptoms from stress that could affect your cardiovascular health.