Lifestyle and work can impact your heart health. Stress, be it acute or chronic can increase the heart rate, blood pressure and can lead to heart attack.
Stress has emerged as one of the major risk factors for heart attack in recent times. As per researchers from Harvard University, it is as dangerous as smoking or high blood pressure for heart. This has led to lifestyle becoming a major factor that could affect our heart health. Namely, there are more and more cases of people under the age of 50 dying of a heart attack, without being smokers, consuming alcohol, and without any medical history that could have led to an increased risk of heart attack.
Impact of acute and chronic stress on heart health
"Stress can cause a heart attack. It cannot directly cause a heart attack, but it can accelerate it. Acute stress is a more frequent cause of heart attack than chronic stress. Acute stress can lead to an increase in adrenaline and other hormones, which increases the chances of heart attack and high blood pressure. It also makes plaques on our blood vessels become more vulnerable to rupture, and it increases the coagulate state as well. All together can lead to a heart attack," cardiologist Dr Nityanand Tripathi, director of Fortis Hospital, Shalimar Bagh told HT Digital.
Coping with stress in an unhealthy way like skipping meals, over-eating, not taking out time for relaxation or exercise can have an impact on heart health and cause heart attacks.
"Chronic stress has multiple effects on our body. It can lead to increased emotional stress and blood pressure. In order to cope with chronic stress, we usually resort to unhealthy habits, such as smoking, overeating, avoiding exercise, eating a poor diet, lack of relaxation...., all of which can lead to disturbances in the body, thus increasing the chances of a heart attack. It also increases the chances of getting diabetes and chronic high blood pressure. All together leads to an increase in plaque formation in blood vessels and if we combine plaques and acute stress at some point can lead to a heart attack," says Dr. Tripathi.
"Chronic stress can also cause a heart attack, but more than that, emotional stress is the one which is the most dangerous for heart attacks. Stress is the most important precipitating factor of heart attacks in younger population, apart from smoking. A person having problems of high BP, diabetes, cholesterol, obesity already might be having heart blockages of 30-40%. When this person goes through emotional stress, the heart block ruptures and forms a blood clot, which can reach to a 100% block. So, a person going through emotional stress who also has pre-existing blocks, can get a heart attack even without any premonitory symptoms. Even physical stress like the stress one faces in the gym, can cause heart attacks due to the same reason," says Dr. V. Vinoth Kumar, Senior Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, CARE Hospitals, Hi-Tec City, Hyderabad.
For the above reasons, doctors recommend that you set aside some time for relaxation every day. Walking, meditating, yoga, reading, or any other activity that relaxes you helps. Exercise also helps keep you fit and healthy. Do not consume alcohol and smoke to overcome stress. Spend time with family and friends regularly and most importantly, take care of your mental and physical health, as this leads to a significant reduction in the risk of heart attack.