We’ve all been there. We fear failure, lie awake at night with our mind racing and experience stressors and traumas that seem to eat away at us. We feel the anxiety rising in our chest and falling into our stomach. What if all this emotional strain is dangerous for our blood pressure?
We already know the effect of stress on our heart rate because we feel it. But that’s a temporary response to a temporary situation. When it comes to anxiety, which is more chronic and long-lasting than stress, the interplay between our physical, mental and emotional states is complex. So is the answer to whether anxiety can cause long-term high blood pressure.
How much can anxiety raise blood pressure?
“Can anxiety increase your blood pressure? Unequivocally, the answer is yes,” says George Bakris, M.D., professor of medicine and director of the Comprehensive Hypertension Center at the University of Chicago Medicine. “And in fact, the older you are — in fact if you’re over 60 — you can almost take it to the bank, it’s going to raise your pressure.”
Aging by itself is already associated with higher blood pressure. Our blood vessels get stiffer over time. Bakris notes that one of the natural buffers we have to blunt the rise in blood pressure — a compound released from cells called nitric oxide—is reduced as we get older.
Blood pressure may be even higher in those experiencing anxiety, anger and related factors at any age, Bakris says. But there are differences between temporary rises in blood pressure and more sustained — and potentially more harmful — high blood pressure levels. To get a better measure of your blood pressure, check it several times over a longer period of time and discuss your numbers with your doctor.
“Anxiety cuts across everything, but it should not be confused as a cause of hypertension,” Bakris says.
Evidence suggests that certain people exposed to stress have a statistically greater likelihood of developing heart problems, including high blood pressure, says Richard Contrada, of the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research and a professor in the Rutgers University department of psychology. So stress can be a risk factor.
“But a risk factor is a correlation,” Contrada says. “It does not come with evidence of cause and effect.”
To learn more about anxiety and its relation to high blood pressure, from AARP, CLICK HERE.
