What’s on your mind can take a heavy toll on your heart.
Mental stress can increase the risk of heart disease, yet we often don’t think about the brain-heart connection when it comes to preventing a heart attack, focusing on the physical body instead.
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Stress is one of the key risk factors of heart disease, a Heart Research Australia study shows.
Understanding stress, stress management, and relaxation are vital in ensuring good mental health, and in adjusting to the pressures and strains of everyday life.
This understanding is more important than ever after two years of pandemic stress that has affected people all across the globe.
US cardiologist Dr Susan Cheng is the director of public health research at Cedars-Sinai’s Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center and Smidt Heart Institute in Los Angeles.
Speaking with TODAY about the impact of stress on the heart, she said: “To be honest, the effects are probably immeasurable. We are going to see fallout and it will take us years to catch up and figure out exactly what that fallout looks like.
“Even if somebody has what appears to be a healthy heart, maybe even no risk factors — maybe their blood pressure is OK, their cholesterol is OK, they don’t have diabetes — in situations like that, the heart can still be susceptible to stress, especially when stress levels are really high.”
Dr. Cheng explained that symptoms can be small, such as subtle palpitations or chest discomfort.
But particularly for people who do have risk factors that create the setup for heart problems to develop, stress can be “the match that lights the fire” or “the trigger that sparks the domino effect” of going down the wrong path, she said.
The Heart Foundation of Australia sees anxiety, stress, and heart disease as conditions that often occur together.
“It’s easy to find yourself engaging in unhealthy habits when you’re feeling overwhelmed – a drink too many, un-quitting smoking or zoning out in front of the TV instead of going for a walk,” the organisation began.
“The bad news? Some of these habits can have an impact on your heart.
“Instead, try engaging with healthy stress management techniques like meditation and physical activity, as well as following a heart healthy eating pattern and maintaining a healthy weight,” the statement read.
How stress affects the heart
Dr. Cheng explained that there is a very strong heart-brain connection, which can be disturbed by stress.
One extreme example is takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or broken heart syndrome, where the death of a loved one or another harrowing experience can cause a person’s heart to change shape, leading to chest pain and other symptoms of a heart attack but without clogged arteries.
Chronic everyday stress also takes a toll, triggering and promoting inflammation.
It can lead to high blood pressure, which can increase the risk for heart attack and stroke, according to research by the Australian Heart Foundation and American Heart Association.
Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver, Colorado, explained to TODAY that stressful events typically bring on unhealthy coping strategies, such as drinking more alcohol, eating more comfort foods or taking up smoking — a cascade of behaviours that aren’t the best for cardiac health.
Primary care doctors and cardiologists probably don’t discuss the role of stress enough when they talk to patients about heart disease risks, he added.
“Medicine is all about hard endpoints, but at the end of the day, we as human beings are squishy and soft and so it’s hard to quantify stress,” Dr. Andrew said.
How to protect your heart from stress
Exercise, especially in nature, to relieve stress
“Getting in those 30 minutes every day of exercise is absolutely critical for not only physical well-being but for mental well-being,” Dr. Andrew noted.
Find time to focus on yourself
This is quiet time where you can reset amidst the stress, Dr. Cheng said.
If you’re busy rushing around picking up kids and going from one obligation to another, she recommended getting to your next appointment 10-15 minutes early, sitting in your car in the car park, turning off phone notifications, and re-calibrating.
“If you can do it once a day, amazing. If you can do it just a few times a week, I find that’s the first step towards (de-stressing),” she added.
Dr. Freeman had similar advice: “Meditate, go for a walk, do a walking labyrinth, look at the snowfall, look at the stars, whatever you have time for. And when you’re doing that, cast off that accumulated stress”.
Watch for warning signs that stress is affecting your heart
They include an increased heart rate, butterflies in the stomach, sweating, palpitations, and shortness of breath.
It’s normal to feel stress in the moment during a stressful situation, but that fight-or-flight response should go away as things settle down.
If it doesn’t and you feel shortness of breath doing regular daily activities, like walking up a flight of stairs or walking two blocks along flat ground, let your doctor know, Dr. Cheng said.
If you’re developing chest pain in the middle of an argument, stop arguing right then and seek medical attention, Dr. Freeman added.
Forgive yourself
Don’t let setbacks or mistakes eat at you, he advised. Did you do everything you could? Did you go the extra mile? If the answer is yes, let go as much as you possibly can.
“Life is full of stresses so I always tell people, ‘You’re never going to find anybody who’s 100% stress-free,’” Dr. Freeman noted. “It’s important that we all deal with that stress in a way that works for us.”
For more information, visit the Heart Foundation Australia.
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