Stress Management
How stress reaches your heart and vessels, and what actually helps.
Stress is not only a feeling. It raises your heart rate and blood pressure, changes how your blood clots, and long stretches of it leave a measurable mark on the cardiovascular system.
Which is not the same as saying stress causes heart disease, or that relaxing will undo it.
10 to 40%
higher risk of coronary heart disease and stroke in people exposed to work stressors, pooled across 27 studies of over 600,000 adults
Published cohort analysis
600,000+
adults across 27 studies went into that estimate
Pooled analysis of 27 cohort studies
It is one risk among several, and it is one of the harder ones to change on your own.
What tends to help
- Naming the stressor, which is harder than it sounds
- Movement, which works on stress and on the vessels at once
- Sleep, the first thing stress takes and the last thing people protect
- Talking to someone, including about a diagnosis you are carrying
Reading on stress management
9 articles found. Showing 3.
Blood Clots and Mental Health
Patients can experience everything from anxiety to grief to post-traumatic stress disorder after having a blood clot, yet these issues are often overlooked.
Read
Recovering from a Blood Clot: What’s Mental Health Got to Do With It
Having a blood clot can be a life-altering event.
Read
Stress, Anxiety, and Your Circulation: Breaking the Cycle for Better Vascular Health
You're not imagining it. That tightness in your chest when stress hits, the way your legs ache more during anxious times, or how worry seems to make your vascular symptoms worse. It's all connected.
ReadKeep the conversation going.
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