Stress has become a dietary food in the life of many Americans because in a study conducted by Gallup, it was shown that almost every American or 49 in every hundred Americans says they experience stressful experiences. The percentage has increased by 16 points since the last two decades, and the largest in all the trend of Gallup ever. Although being stressed is also just a part of life, stress, which is frequent and chronic at enough times, can affect your health and wellness- especially as regards your heart. Starting with the undeniable connection between heart health and stress, down to the way in which a healthy diet is a simple solution that can make a difference, stress management and relief can end up making a greater difference than one can imagine.
The connection between heart and stress
Stress is not part of health, it is almost a different entity, and people pay too little attention to this condition, Michael Blaha, M.D., M.P.H., a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins, says. Nonetheless, this is an absolute incorrect assumption, because stress may affect the body and, especially, a heart, in various ways. As an example, Blaha states that stress has the potential to enhance inflammation in the body which correlates with health issues such as the high blood pressure that are known to affect the heart. Stress can also make you prone to heart disease, it is able to bring about a diversity of particular problems. As an example, even a slight stress may lead to such concerns like poor blood circulation in the heart muscle and long-term stress may affect the clotting of blood. This causes the blood to become sticky and elevates the chances of a stroke, according to, the University of Rochester Medical Center encyclopedia.
The article by Johns Hopkins observes that chronic stress may also influence the heart in a more indirect manner. Take worry as an example, worrying can cause poor sleep, and with poor sleep comes a snowball effect: you are likely to exercise less, eat unhealthy food, or not pay attention to your weight, as Blaha puts it. The American Heart Association (AHA) also emphasizes that stress is also the cause of unhealthy habits, which predispose a person to developing heart disease and stroke to mention but a few, which include smoking and overeating, engagement in insufficient physical activity among other habits.
A discussion of the long term impacts
On the one hand, stress can indeed be rather positive in terms of your health when it comes to temporary and short-term cases; on the other hand, it is important to bring to your attention the fact that, when its levels are high, stress may adversely affect your health way beyond the necessary time to guarantee your survival in this or other situations, as Healthline points out. Depending on the level of chronic stress experienced, several long-term effects on the body can be experienced and these symptoms may include irritability to feeling anxious and depressed, sleeplessness and headaches. It is also clarified in the explanation that recurring or repeated stress will overwork the heart more than it should be, an outcome that may lead to an elevated blood pressure level and other consequences that may lead to stroke and heart attack.
The long-term effects of chronic stress may include such severe conditions as heart disease or even heart damage. When, in cases whereby one (or more) of the heart valve is damaged or diseased, surgery can be used to either repair or replace the valve to have functionality once again. Treatment is mandatory because the valves of the heart are very instrumental in flowing the blood through the heart in a single direction and efficiently to a destination. Besides restoring the heart valve functionality, the surgery can make it possible to minimize the symptoms that usually accompany the condition (these include dizziness, chest-pain, palpitations, and shortness of breath, to mention but a few). The surgery may also prevent the further deterioration of the disease condition. One should not forget that the operation of replacing the valves in the heart may be done in many other ways, according to the place where valve is located, and also, according to the definite sort of difficulty, but still, the recovery period is long.
Easy and smart heart-friendly decisions
Fortunately, it is not difficult in terms of stress how one can take care of the heart. In a bid to reduce and control stress, the main focus should be mental health care. Healthy diet, lots of sleep and proper work-life balance are good places to begin. In one of the articles published by Harvard Health, the author identifies a few approaches through which an individual can minimize the amount of stress they experience on a daily basis, and the solutions discovered in people like laughter are unlikely ones.
As Dr. Shalu Ramchandani and member of the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine staff at Massachusetts General Hospital puts it: Dr. William Fry has called laughter, the inner jog, and the only exercise that can result in a net decrease in weight. It lowers the stress hormones and turns into a manifestation of delight, optimism, and hope. Some of the additional tips mentioned by the article are the importance of brisk walk, the positive effect of relaxing music, and the essence of less noisy noise in your life.
Along with every-day stress management, it is also essential that you monitor your level of heart health especially when you already have other undesirable health conditions like high blood pressure. Besides regular visits to a medical professional, diet and exercise provides an amazing method of caring about the heart on a day-to-day basis. An example of heart healthy diet changes include fiber intake in the food intake, use of balanced breakfast, and introduction of foods that contain omega-3 fatty acids. Regarding physical exercise, adult males aged 18-64 years old should receive at least 150 minute per week of moderate intensity aerobic exercise or 75 minutes per week of vigorous aerobic exercise. A mixture of the two, evenly distributed during the week will also serve well, either through choosing to spend more time outdoors with a moderately paced walk or a gym membership.
Stress may significantly influence the heart, and it may even lead to serious problems with heart health that will have to be treated with extreme preciseness. With the help of everyday stress coping and a more active change of a healthy diet, your heart will stay healthy in no time.
