The Link Between Chronic Stress and High Blood Pressure

Ever wonder how stress-induced, high blood pressure during chronic psychological stress ends up causing cardiovascular disease, the number one killer in the United States and the developed world?

• Basically, your heart is a mechanical pump, and your blood vessels act like hoses. The cardiovascular stress-response essentially consists of making them work harder for a while, and if you do that on a regular basis, they will wear out, just like any pump or hose.
• The first step in the road to stress-related disease is developing hypertension, chronically elevated blood pressure. This one seems obvious: if stress causes your blood pressure to go up, then chronic stress causes your blood pressure to go up chronically. Task accomplished, you’ve got hypertension.
• Now, if you chronically raise your blood pressure, chronically increase the force with which blood is coursing through your vessels, those vessels have to work harder to regulate your blood flow.
• As they work harder, they also build a thicker muscle layer around them, to better control the increased force of blood flow. But as a result of these thicker muscles, these vessels now have become more rigid, more resistant to the force of blood flow. Which tends to increase blood pressure.

Current diagnosis is chronic high blood pressure.