Does stress increase my risk of heart disease?

Excellent question, thank you. As we are studying the psychological links that contribute to illness and disease we learn that stress can be a major contributor to physical and mental conditions. It is not that stress increases heart disease, but being unable to handle stress can be a contributing factor.

Life is full of stressful events which can occur on a daily basis. These can include events such as, too much work and too little time, demands of your family vs. work, an aging or ailing parent, or a rough commute home. Some people have difficulty letting things go and learning how to work with stress. Excellent stress reducers are walking, yoga, meditation, or having someone to talk with about the events of your life. Rather than have stress come in waves that eventually knock you down, it is far better to take one wave at a time and have it wash off you at the shoreline. Learn to laugh, learn to cope, learn that you are not alone, and stay strong.

Everyone knows that particular events, such as the death of a spouse or being fired from a job, are extremely stressful. Yet research indicates that less dramatic but more constant types of stress may also harm your heart. The Lancet published a study that involved over 24,000 participants from 52 countries. Roughly 11,000 patients who had just had a first heart attack were asked, as they left the hospital, about various forms of stress they had experienced in the preceding 12 months. The questions probed reactions to job and home stress, financial problems, and major life events. Members of a control group, who were matched to the patients for age and gender but had no history of heart disease, underwent similar assessments. Despite variations in the prevalence of stress across countries and racial or ethnic groups, increased stress levels conferred a greater risk for heart attack than did hypertension, abdominal obesity, diabetes, and several other risk factors.