Stress Kills!
We have all heard that “stress kills.” It is one of the leading causes of poor health, premature death, anxiety, and other serious mental illnesses. Researchers have suggested at least six different ways that psychological stress can kill you, all of which involve the heart or arteries.
Stress is a dangerous but natural part of our evolutionary path. Understanding how you are predisposed to stress can help you begin to address it in your life.
In previous generations, the stress response of fight or flight worked to our advantage to keep us alive. These responses were used to make quick decisions with the help of our amygdala. It bypasses our intellect and responds automatically. During this function, it releases adrenaline (epinephrine) into the body as well as cortisol and other steroids called glucocorticoids. Glucocorticoids are helpful and are used in many medicines for the short term, which can save your life. However, over the long term, regular administration of glucocorticoids can kill you. This is the same for stress. It can be valuable and life-saving in small doses, but in large, prolonged doses, it can kill you.
These hormones are valuable because epinephrine can cause your heart to pump faster, getting more blood to the muscles that you might need to save your life. This is great for running away from threats or fighting to the death, but in today’s world, you are not likely to encounter any of these, but your stress response is still being activated.
In darker times, this was healthy because you would run or fight, but then eventually the race or battle would end. Today our stress response gets activated, but without the climax, stays activated longer. It is the duration of these hormones and steroids that causes us health concerns in the long term.
Stress taxes your heart.
There’s no secret there, but the mind and body are intimately connected, and I don’t believe there is any disconnect between the two. Distressed people are more likely to smoke, drink, and eat unhealthy food for comfort while neglecting their well-being. It would be great if that was the only risk, as we could cure almost all of it with exercise and diet, but there are mental and emotional aspects of stress that I am often confronted with as well. When I was sick, I had very little control over my physical health. A few trips to the treadmill were not going to cure what I had going on inside of me. My only option was to work on my mental well-being. Sadness, anxiety, anger, poverty, loneliness, and stress at work or home can directly cause heart and blood vessel disease, which can kill you! Luckily, your mind and your body can be trained TOGETHER to give you a more viable solution for longevity.
Can you Die of a Broken Heart?
People with major depression have three times the normal risk of developing cardiovascular disease and heart attacks. Even worse, mild depression can also damage the heart. In one study, they asked 2800 American adults, “Have you felt so sad, discouraged, hopeless, or have you had so many problems that you wondered if anything was worthwhile?” Dire, sure, but certainly not something that many of us haven’t felt at least at some point. The people who answered yes to this question had double the risk of developing chronic heart disease!
What about mere attitudes?
One US study followed over 97,000 women over 8 years, and found that optimists were 25% less likely to die from coronary heart disease than pessimists! Another French study of 23,000 men and women found that pessimists had a 50% greater likelihood of having a stroke! This is significant because, while we are all aware of the benefits of diet and exercise on heart health (still the leading cause of death in the United States), it is the little-discussed mental health that can greatly help to reduce your chances of dying in this manner.
Most of the time, my clients contact me to get in better shape. I often start there with them and then lead them to more emotional and mental growth. Both body and mind are connected, and I don’t believe you can be healthy without both working in conjunction. If you currently have high blood pressure or are in one of these risk groups for cardiovascular disease, I beg you to work on both your physical and mental health. There are clinically proven techniques that I share that help with anxiety, anger, and depression specifically.
In some cases, meditation alone can reduce blood pressure by 23% more than heart medications, and by reframing how you think about things, you can greatly reduce your anxiety and anger.
Before you turn to medication, help me better understand your situation.
If you are ready to start getting more years out of your life as well as more life out of your years, click on the links below!
