Stress and Atherosclerosis ( ACS ).
While it has not been proven that stress can accelerate atherosclerosis, there is a fair amount of evidence suggesting that it does.
People who react to everyday emotional stresses with an exaggerated Type A, clenched-teeth, fight-or-flight surge of adrenaline (commonly manifested as frustration, anger or hostility) appear to be at the greatest risk.
Stress, and how we react to it, can directly affect our blood vessels. Even the normal stress that we experience in everyday life can cause a temporary worsening in our vascular function, through hormonal changes and increases in the adrenaline in our bloodstream.
With chronic emotional stress, especially in the Type A individuals who dump adrenaline into their bloodstreams at the slightest provocation, these temporary changes can persist. Chronic stress can also cause increased inflammation (sometimes producing elevatedCRP levels), which is associated with an elevated risk of atherosclerosis.
Furthermore, chronic emotional stress is often accompanied by a worsening in several other cardiovascular risk factors. Smokers under stress commonly increase their consumption of tobacco, for instance. And overeating (and thus weight gain) is quite common in people under emotional stress. Cholesterol levels also tend to increase during periods of increased stress.
So chronic stress can potentially accelerate atherosclerosis both by directly affecting your blood vessels, and by contributing to a worsening of your overall cardiac risk profile.
People with Type A personality traits tend also to have more significant symptoms — especially angina — once they develop CAD. Their outcomes after coronary artery bypass surgerytend to be worse than for patients who do not have an exaggerated response to stress, and their overall risk of dying from their heart disease is also higher.
Stress and Acute Heart Conditions
There is a lot of evidence that severe emotional stress can precipitate more acute cardiac conditions, especially acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and sudden cardiac death.
Extremely stressful life events — such as the death of a loved one, divorce, loss of a job, business failure, being the victim of violence, exposure to natural (or man-made) disasters, or serious family conflicts — are associated with a significantly increased risk of ACS or cardiac death (both sudden and non-sudden) for up to a year after the stressful event.
This acute increase in cardiac risk is thought to be due to the significant elevations in blood pressure, heart rate, vascular tone (or vein constriction), inflammation, and accelerated blood clotting that can be seen, even in typically serene individuals, with severe emotional stress. These changes in physiology can increase the likelihood ofplaque rupture — the event that produces ACS.
Have a great week end and Happy easter to all of you friends
To solve work problem ;you can have 50 of them or one of them; You must stay calm, listen , understand, be positive about the issue, get the facts , use tactics, attack the problem no the person, avoid the blaming game, focus on the future not the past, ask the right question, pick your battle and time, don’t scream, make an eye contact, link offers and share the idea how to fix and how to stop it from happening again, be creative and celebrate agreement be friendly
Steve Ramsey, PhD
Calgary, Alberta- Canada.
2015 day before easter.