You don’t need me to tell you that we live in stressful times. After all, there’s a 49% chance you’re experiencing it yourself.
Research shows roughly one in two Americans experience significant daily stress. Another 75% of them say it comes with physical or emotional symptoms like anxiety, sleep disruption, and delayed healthcare visits.
But while we know inherently that stress affects our health, we don’t always think about it in a heart health context.
So, how much does stress actually affect your heart health?
Let’s take a closer look.
First, a brief definition
It’s interesting to note that there’s no universally recognized definition for stress in a medical setting. The best we have to work with is a psychophysiological model from 2011, which states:
“‘Stress’ should be restricted to conditions where an environmental demand exceeds the natural regulatory capacity of an organism, in particular situations that include unpredictability and uncontrollability. Physiologically, stress seems to be characterized by either the absence of an anticipatory response (unpredictable) or a reduced recovery (uncontrollable) of the neuroendocrine reaction.”
So, what does this mean in more human terms?
That stress is a physical and mental response to being unable to cope with a situation. This could be a deadline at work, a pending divorce, and yes, fear over a crisis health situation.
This also means stress is both something you feel and can see. We’ll get into its measurement later on.
But it’s also important to note that stress can be one of two things: short-term or chronic. Most of us experience short-term stress all the time, like avoiding a car that swerves unpredictably on the highway. Chronic stress is the condition of feeling stress longer than a few minutes or an hour or two. Scientifically speaking, this is defined as “stress that persists for several hours per day for weeks or months.”
You don’t need to be stressed every hour of the day to be living in chronic stress. If you find yourself perseverating on stressors just two or three hours per day, you’re likely experiencing chronic stress.
It’s also what I’m the most concerned about when it comes to protecting your heart.
The long-term heart health effects of high stress
I’m sure you’re already familiar with the basic external effects of stress, like cluster headaches and hair loss.
But I’d like you to take a closer look at its long-term effects, particularly when it comes to chronic stress.
- Inflammation: Chronic stress is said to ‘disrupt homeostasis,’ which simply means it affects how your body regulates internal systems like temperature or oxygen levels. That’s because being chronically stressed can overactivate the immune system — the root cause of 75% to 90% of all human diseases. The result of this stress, usually an influx of pro-inflammatory glucocorticoid hormones, creates a “common soil” for cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disorders, and even cancer.
- Constricted blood vessels: Stress significantly increases your risk for heart disease via a chronically increased heart rate and elevated blood pressure. This constricts blood vessels and substantially increases your risk for heart attacks and strokes.
- High blood sugar and unbalanced cholesterol: Cortisol, also called the stress hormone, gets released when your body is exposed to high levels of stress. It’s also directly associated with conditions like hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia. These are all factors that exist in the lead-up to metabolic dysfunction.
With these in mind, it’s no surprise that heart disease is still the leading cause of death in America.
And considering the financial burden of stress was estimated at $300 billion per year in the US alone, it’s critical to keep an eye on your stress to determine whether it’s becoming a danger to your health.
How do you measure your stress levels?
The problem is that stress is typically treated as a ‘nebulous’ feeling of pressure, anxiety, and general exhaustion. This means, unfortunately, that not everyone recognizes these issues from the inside looking out. Like a frog in a pot, you don’t realize the pressure is climbing. Until it becomes too much to handle (or too much for your heart).
One of the most objective ways to measure stress is with specific biomarkers. The best and most accessible of these include:
- Cortisol: Should range between 5 and 23 µg/dL, depending on age and sex and the time of day that you measure it
- Glucose: Should be less than 100 mg/dL after fasting for at least eight hours
- HbA1c: Should be at or below 5.6%, as 5.7% and above indicates prediabetes or diabetes
- Triglycerides: Should be less than 150 mg/dL
- CRP: Should be less than 1 mg/L (anything between 1 and 3 mg/L may indicate heart disease)
You can learn more about how to read your lab work here.
You can typically order lab tests for these via online providers, or have your doctor write a script. There are also devices in development that can help you measure stress using bodily fluids (think sweat, blood, urine, or saliva). But these aren’t publicly available at this moment.
Another litmus test is looking for more obvious physical symptoms. And no, these don’t necessarily have to be around your heart. Chronically high blood pressure, a high resting heart rate, and tightness or pain in your chest all indicate that stress is taking a toll on your heart.
You can also use more subjective measures to evaluate stress. Family and friends, for example, may notice physical or mental signs of strain. You may be short-tempered or more prone to anger. Or, you may become increasingly depressed and lose interest in activities you once enjoyed.
Learn more about mitigating stress for better health
There’s no world in which stress is a non-issue for human beings. Current events aside, we inherently live stressful lives with stressful situations at work, school, and in relationships.
So rather than trying to eliminate stress completely, it’s a much better strategy to focus on mitigation. This means focusing on hobbies and habits, physical support via diet and exercise, and targeted, high-quality supplements at the beginning of your journey.
I also realize we’ve barely scratched the surface here, especially when it comes to managing stress in specific scenarios.
So if you’re interested in learning more or diving deeper into the research, I’d recommend the following resources: