Look at the leading causes of death in any developed country and you won’t find the word “chronic stress” listed anywhere. Yet many well-respected studies have linked chronic stress to a host of degenerative diseases which cause fear in many of us, including the top killer — heart disease.
How does stress lead to an heart attack? And how inflammation, which is supposed to be part of our protective immune system, gets involved in the whole deadly process? In this article, we will take a close look at the intricate relationship between chronic stress, our heart and the body’s inflammatory response.
What is a Stress Response?
You’ve probably heard of the fight-or-flight response, the same biological reaction experienced by other four-legged animals whenever they feel that their lives are at stake. Even if you’ve never heard of it, its effects are unmistakable and familiar: racing heart, warm body, higher blood pressure, and quick short breaths. These automatic, split-second responses deliver extra chunks of oxygen and nutrients to body parts that need them most, so that we, and our less evolved counterparts, can either make a quick exit from the source of danger, or fight for our dear lives.
But, that’s not all. With energies diverted for immediate uses, functions that are deemed less critical during a stress response, such as our digestive, immune and reproduction systems, are slowed down or suppressed temporarily. This makes sense because when our life is in danger, the last thing in our mind is to digest our food, fight against a flu virus or conceive an offspring. After all, these things are relevant only if we manage to survive the immediate danger.
Once the danger is gone and we are alive to tell the tale, our blood pressure, heart rate and everything else will gradually return back to normal, pretty much like nothing has ever happened.
Stress Response that Doesn’t Turn Off
This built-in stress response is a brilliant way to help us react to perceived danger quickly and keep us alive, at least during those times when dinner meant an unavoidable battle with saber-tooth creatures.
But in modern days, how many times a year do you actually have to literally run or fight for your life? More often than not, we wrestle with unseen threats, such as the fear of losing our job and the worries of losing our retirement fund, which often put our stress response on high alert.
That is not the original intention of the stress response though. It is meant mainly to help us cope with short-term acute stress, not chronic psychological stress that we now face almost every day.
As clever as our brain may be, it still can’t differentiate a stress caused by a hungry bear and one that is triggered by an impending job interview. Both situations activate the same stress response within us — elevated blood pressure, faster heartbeat and breathing, and suppressed immunity, digestion and reproductive function. Furthermore, while a life-and-death encounter with a bear may last only for a short period, an anticipated stressful event that keeps replaying in our mind is more likely to last longer, sometimes days or even months.
The price we pay for turning on the stress response constantly is high. Much like chronic inflammation that never turns off, chronic stress takes its toll on our health, especially our heart, and can literally clog us to death.
How Stress Promotes Inflammation
First of all, chronic stress induces blood pressure to stay high, leading to hypertension in the long-term. Chronically high blood pressure is especially damaging to our blood vessels, wearing and tearing them down quicker than usual. Due to the intense pressure, the otherwise smooth linings in the interior of our blood vessels suffer microscopic tears and become rough and uneven.
The tiny depressions on the inside of our vessels in turn trigger the body’s inflammatory response which attempts to repair the tears. A flurry of pro-inflammatory cells and hormones begin to flood the sites of injury together with other fatty nutrients, such as cholesterol. If at this point, we are also stressing over some work or family issues, our blood will tend to thicken and turn sluggish. This greatly increases the likelihood of clumps and blood clots forming that will end up deposited as plaques around the blood vessels. When enough plaques are accumulated, blood flow will be greatly reduced and all sorts of possible health conditions, including heart disease, will start to manifest.
Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the story. Thick accumulated plaques in the blood vessels are not immovable fixtures. They can become loose and break up into smaller pieces by high blood pressure. This may sound like a good thing because now we have less plaques to worry about.
But, this is actually the beginning of our worst nightmare. A dislodged plaque that travels freely within the blood stream is like a moving time bomb. If it gets stuck in one of our heart arteries, it triggers a heart attack, and if it gets trapped in a blood vessel in the brain, we end up with a stroke!
That may explain why ‘healthy’ individuals with normal or even low cholesterol levels can suffer from coronary diseases. In fact, only about fifty percent of those who have suffered a heart attack are found to have high cholesterol readings. It may well turn out that some people with healthy cholesterol levels have suffered sufficient damaged blood vessels for inflammation to take place, and for runaway plaques to form.
What You Can Do
Don’t let stress kill you! Coping with stress is one of the important ways to keep chronic inflammation at bay, and maintain a healthy heart. Check out some of these articles for useful stress-management and heart-friendly tips:
- How to Relax and Master Your Stress
- How to Meditate
- Reduce Stress & Anxiety with Humor
- How to Choose the Best Fish Oil Supplement
- Free Yourself from the Prison of Your Mind
- How to Live at Peace with Your Emotions
- How to Prevent Heart Disease
- Relaxing Foods that Melt Stress Away
Looking for ways to reduce inflammation? Then, don't miss our useful Anti-Inflammation Resources »
I’ve read that inflammation is the root of all illness. Not surprised that stress is a contributing factor. Great article!
Thanks, Clara. The link between inflammation and poor diet, smoking and environmental pollutants is easy to grasp and understand. But many don’t realize that mental stress can also promote inflammation even without external triggers. The thoughts we have, the negative emotions we keep inside and the stress level we perceive can create a series of reactions in the body that lead to dreadful health ailments.