High Blood Pressure (hypertension) Controllable Risk Factors: Stress
This eight-part series concludes with the controllable risk factor of high blood pressure: stress.
Stress
Stress forces hormones to act in overdrive. Stress forces us to make decisions every day. Financial strains, public speaking, a lack of job skills, and relationship difficulties affect most Americans on most days. It’s important we learn how to deal with our stress in a healthy way.
It’s difficult to gauge how much stress is recommended and how much is too much. Everybody defines stress differently. When you feel stressed at the end of your day, write down the events that filled your day and pinpoint those events that stressed you out.
The science behind it
Physical response to stress events is the cause of epinephrine and cortisol secretion. Epinephrine and cortisol are hormones that prompt the heart to beat more rapidly and the blood vessels to constrict. This leads to high blood pressure. Stress has a direct link to high blood pressure.
Stress also plays a vital role in depression, which is linked to heart disease, which is linked to high blood pressure. The connections are multi-fold.
It’s unclear has to how stress affects high blood pressure on a long-term basis.
Stress management
It’s important to remember when stress management is practiced, it may also help with other controllable risk factors of high blood pressure like overeating. The benefits can multi-fold.
Think of those events that make you feel stressed and then try to avoid them. These stress triggers are detrimental to your health.
People handle stress relief in different ways. It’s recommended to practice these relieving techniques once every day (1). Here are some popular ideas to relieve your stress:
- Aromatherapy
- Biofeedback
- Breathe purposely
- Busyness
- Cleanliness
- Cultivate forgotten relationships
- Dancing
- Delegate
- Exercise
- Find your favorite spot
- Forgive
- Hobbies
- Journaling
- Laugh
- Music
- Organization
- Play games
- Play sports
- Prayer
- Prepare your favorite meal and invite loved ones to enjoy it with you
- Say “no” if you have to
- Self-talk that reflects positive things
- Simplify
- Sleep
- Stretch
- Talk
- Tell jokes
- Yoga
There are two types of stress
One type of stress is the kind we face every day. The other type of stress is the kind that our bodies face when risk factors threaten it. Don’t add undue stress on your body.
What else is there to do?
Finding new ways to relieve stress may be a new habit. Try to be as creative as you can. Think about that one thing you’se always wanted to do, and see if you can’t do it now.
If your life is filled with stress and if you’re overweight and if you have high blood pressure, you’re flirting with disaster. And the irony is, you don’t have to!
Look at your life. Make the necessary changes. Live longer and happier.
(1) http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/common/heartdisease/risk/092.ht
