Does being nervous affect blood pressure

Can Anxiety Cause High Blood Pressure?

According to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America (ADAA), anxiety disorders affect more than 40 million adults every year in the United States. Anxiety can cause a wide range of physical symptoms, including an increase in blood pressure levels.

Although anxiety isn’t linked to chronic high blood pressure, both short-term and chronic anxiety may cause your blood pressure to spike.

In this article, we’ll explore the link between anxiety and high blood pressure and treatment options for both.

Fortunately, anxiety doesn’t cause chronic high blood pressure. However, it can lead to a short-term increase in blood pressure.

When you begin to feel anxious because of a stressful situation, your body enters fight-or-flight mode. This happens due to the activation of your sympathetic nervous system. During fight-or-flight mode, your adrenaline and cortisol levels rise, both of which can lead to an increase in blood pressure.

Although stress and anxiety can cause high blood pressure, it’s only temporary, and levels generally return to normal once you’ve calmed down again.

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is a chronic condition that occurs when blood pressure levels are elevated. Chronic high blood pressure can be quite dangerous and can cause significant damage to the body, especially the brain, heart, kidneys, and eyes.

Hypertension is classified into two categories:

Primary hypertension. This type of hypertension develops in the absence of a specific trigger and is the most common type of hypertension. Primary hypertension is often thought to develop due to genetic, environmental, or lifestyle causes.
Secondary hypertension. The cause of this type of hypertension is generally known and is often another underlying condition. Secondary hypertension is often caused by conditions that affect the kidneys, heart, or thyroid.

Interestingly, anxiety can also cause a type of high blood pressure commonly called white coat hypertension. This type happens when your blood pressure is typically normal but spikes in a medical setting, such as a doctor’s office, due to medical anxiety.

Anxiety is a natural response to a perceived threat and is something that all of us experience from time to time. When you feel anxious and your fight-or-flight response is activated, you may experience:

nervousness
restlessness
panic or dread
rapid heart rate
sweating
difficulty breathing
chest pain
hyperventilation
shaking or trembling
muscle twitches
chills or hot flashes
numbness or tingling
weakness or fatigue
nausea or vomiting
diarrhea
poor concentration
depersonalization or derealization

In some people, chronic anxiety is due to an underlying anxiety disorder rather than just environmental causes. Anxiety disorders include:

generalized anxiety
panic disorder

specific phobias
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Just like anxiety can cause temporary high blood pressure, high blood pressure can sometimes cause anxiety.

For example, some symptoms of high blood pressure mimic those caused by anxiety, such as:

shortness of breath
dizziness
chest pain
changes in vision

Experiencing these symptoms or any other symptoms of high blood pressure can lead to an increase in anxiety.

In addition, having a chronic condition like high blood pressure can cause depression and anxiety. In fact, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) states that people who have chronic illnesses are more likely to experience mental health conditions, such as anxiety.

One 2018 study found that up to 51 percent of people with pulmonary arterial hypertension may have anxiety and panic disorders, with many of these individuals going untreated for these conditiƒwas ons.

If you have frequent episodes of high blood pressure that are caused by anxiety, treating the underlying anxiety disorder can help bring your blood pressure back down to healthier levels.

Treatment options that may help include:

Psychotherapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the gold standard treatment for most anxiety disorders. CBT techniques can help address and change problematic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that contribute to anxiety.

Research has shown that CBT can be as effective as medication in treating anxiety disorders.

Other treatment approaches can also be considered, depending on the type and severity of the anxiety disorder. For example, exposure therapy is effective for treating specific phobias, while trauma-focused therapy and interactive therapy such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) can be helpful for conditions like PTSD.

Medications

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the most commonly prescribed medications for anxiety disorders. SSRIs work by increase the uptake of serotonin in the brain, which can reduce the symptoms of anxiety.

According to the research, SSRIs are most effective when combined with psychotherapy.

In some cases, benzodiazepines may be prescribed to provide short-term relief of anxiety symptoms. However, they’re highly addictive and are generally prescribed for short-term use only.

Other

While psychotherapy and medications are effective methods for treating anxiety disorders, lifestyle changes are also important.

Make sure that you are getting enough sleep, eating a balanced diet, and moving your body physically. Relaxation techniques such as meditation, yoga, and massage can also help.

Things you can do to feel less anxious

Whether you have an anxiety disorder or not, everyone can benefit from reducing their daily anxiety levels. Here are some changes that you can make in your daily life to lower your anxiety levels:

Get enough sleep. Sleep is very important for overall health, and getting enough sleep can make a huge difference in daily anxiety levels. Most people need 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night, so make sure to aim for this.
Eat a balanced diet. Eating nutritious foods can help support both your physical and mental well-being. Aim to fill your plate with whole foods, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins, whenever possible.
Move your body. Moving your body is important, whether that involves weight training at the gym or taking a walk around the block. Daily exercise and movement can help increase your endorphins and lower stress levels.
Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of bringing your awareness to the present moment, which is incredibly important when you have anxiety. Meditation is a great mindfulness practice to reduce daily stress and anxiety.

Medications used to treat anxiety can help reduce overall anxiety levels, which can reduce blood pressure spikes. However, some anxiety treatment options may also cause an increase in blood pressure levels.

One meta-analysis from 2017 investigated the impact of SSRIs and serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) on blood pressure levels. Data from over 13,000 participants was analyzed, and the researchers found that while SSRIs didn’t have any significant impact on blood pressure, SNRIs caused a slight increase in blood pressure levels.

If you have high blood pressure and have recently started taking medication for anxiety, keep track of any changes in your blood pressure levels. This can help your doctor determine if adjustments need to be made to any of your medications.

Treatment for high blood pressure generally involves making a handful of dietary and lifestyle changes. This includes increasing physical activity, maintaining a healthy weight, limiting sodium, and increasing intake of whole foods.

If dietary and lifestyle changes aren’t enough to lower your blood pressure naturally, certain medications may be prescribed, such as:

beta-blockers (which are also prescribed to reduce symptoms of anxiety)
diuretics
ACE inhibitors
angiotensin II receptor blockers
calcium channel blockers
alpha-2 agonists

Generally, if you have high blood pressure and it’s causing an increase in your anxiety, treating the high blood pressure can help to reduce your anxiety symptoms.

Although anxiety can’t cause chronic hypertension, there’s a definite connection between anxiety and blood pressure. Anxiety leads to a natural increase in blood pressure due to the fight-or-flight response, and high blood pressure can sometimes also lead to an increase in anxiety.

If you’re experiencing symptoms of anxiety or high blood pressure that are impacting your daily life, talk with your doctor about which treatments may work for you.

Can Anxiety Cause High Blood Pressure?

Although anxiety isn’t linked to chronic high blood pressure, both short-term and chronic anxiety may cause your blood pressure to spike.

In this article, we’ll explore the link between anxiety and high blood pressure and treatment options for both.

Fortunately, anxiety doesn’t cause chronic high blood pressure. However, it can lead to a short-term increase in blood pressure.

Although stress and anxiety can cause high blood pressure, it’s only temporary, and levels generally return to normal once you’ve calmed down again.

Hypertension is classified into two categories:

Primary hypertension. This type of hypertension develops in the absence of a specific trigger and is the most common type of hypertension. Primary hypertension is often thought to develop due to genetic, environmental, or lifestyle causes.
Secondary hypertension. The cause of this type of hypertension is generally known and is often another underlying condition. Secondary hypertension is often caused by conditions that affect the kidneys, heart, or thyroid.

nervousness
restlessness
panic or dread
rapid heart rate
sweating
difficulty breathing
chest pain
hyperventilation
shaking or trembling
muscle twitches
chills or hot flashes
numbness or tingling
weakness or fatigue
nausea or vomiting
diarrhea
poor concentration
depersonalization or derealization

In some people, chronic anxiety is due to an underlying anxiety disorder rather than just environmental causes. Anxiety disorders include:

generalized anxiety
panic disorder
specific phobias
obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Just like anxiety can cause temporary high blood pressure, high blood pressure can sometimes cause anxiety.

For example, some symptoms of high blood pressure mimic those caused by anxiety, such as:

shortness of breath
dizziness
chest pain
changes in vision

Experiencing these symptoms or any other symptoms of high blood pressure can lead to an increase in anxiety.

If you have frequent episodes of high blood pressure that are caused by anxiety, treating the underlying anxiety disorder can help bring your blood pressure back down to healthier levels.

Treatment options that may help include:

Psychotherapy

Research has shown that CBT can be as effective as medication in treating anxiety disorders.

Medications

According to the research, SSRIs are most effective when combined with psychotherapy.

In some cases, benzodiazepines may be prescribed to provide short-term relief of anxiety symptoms. However, they’re highly addictive and are generally prescribed for short-term use only.

Other

While psychotherapy and medications are effective methods for treating anxiety disorders, lifestyle changes are also important.

Make sure that you are getting enough sleep, eating a balanced diet, and moving your body physically. Relaxation techniques such as meditation, yoga, and massage can also help.

Things you can do to feel less anxious

Whether you have an anxiety disorder or not, everyone can benefit from reducing their daily anxiety levels. Here are some changes that you can make in your daily life to lower your anxiety levels:

Get enough sleep. Sleep is very important for overall health, and getting enough sleep can make a huge difference in daily anxiety levels. Most people need 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night, so make sure to aim for this.
Eat a balanced diet. Eating nutritious foods can help support both your physical and mental well-being. Aim to fill your plate with whole foods, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and lean proteins, whenever possible.
Move your body. Moving your body is important, whether that involves weight training at the gym or taking a walk around the block. Daily exercise and movement can help increase your endorphins and lower stress levels.
Practice mindfulness. Mindfulness is the practice of bringing your awareness to the present moment, which is incredibly important when you have anxiety. Meditation is a great mindfulness practice to reduce daily stress and anxiety.

If dietary and lifestyle changes aren’t enough to lower your blood pressure naturally, certain medications may be prescribed, such as:

beta-blockers (which are also prescribed to reduce symptoms of anxiety)
diuretics
ACE inhibitors
angiotensin II receptor blockers
calcium channel blockers
alpha-2 agonists

Generally, if you have high blood pressure and it’s causing an increase in your anxiety, treating the high blood pressure can help to reduce your anxiety symptoms.

If you’re experiencing symptoms of anxiety or high blood pressure that are impacting your daily life, talk with your doctor about which treatments may work for you.

Stress and arterial hypertension

Stress is the eternal companion of our life. It arises as a result of excessive nervous and mental stress, despondency, lack of positive prospects or a state of uncertainty. Stress is multifaceted in its manifestations. It plays an important role in the occurrence of not only disorders of human mental activity, but also a number of diseases.

Indeed, mental stress causes an increase in the release of hormones that increase vascular tone, increase cardiac output, accelerate heart contractions and, as a result, lead to an increase in blood pressure. nine0003

Stress is a factor provoking the development of arterial hypertension.

How can you tell if stress is having a negative effect on you? There are many signs, and they are all different in their manifestations.

All alarms can be divided into four categories:

Physical - dizziness, clenched jaws, headaches, indigestion, tense muscles, impaired sleep, palpitations, tinnitus, slouching posture, sweating of the palms, fatigue, exhaustion, trembling, weight gain or loss. nine0003

Psychological - worries and fears, difficulty in making decisions, forgetfulness, pessimism, devastation.

Emotional - a manifestation of anger, aggression, tearfulness, a feeling of powerlessness, frequent mood changes, irritability, a feeling of loneliness, negative thinking, nervousness, longing.

Behavioral - alcohol, drugs, overeating, changing jobs and even places of residence, if this is possible.

nine0002 Stress management is a useful skill that every modern person needs.

It is very important to learn how to cope with stress yourself and protect yourself from its consequences, including such as arterial hypertension.

How to overcome stress:

Use your time wisely (decide on the main tasks, and then assign a time for each of them and fix them, for example, in your notebook. After that, you can plan the rest of the tasks and assign time for them in between the main tasks). nine0026
Avoid negative assumptions (eg “everything always goes wrong with me”, “I can’t do this”, etc.) and tune in to a positive outcome (eg “I can do this”, “I can do it” etc.).
Analyze the causes of your anxiety. After you understand what the true cause is, think about how to minimize or completely eliminate the existing irritant.
Avoid bad habits, they only exacerbate the presence of problems. nine0026
Take rest breaks. Breaks should be taken not only during work, but also on weekends. In particular, make sure you get good sleep.
Maintain positive relationships with other people.
Go in for sports. At the preparation stage, you should undergo a medical examination, which will allow you to answer the following questions: What kind of sport is optimal for you? What is the maximum allowable load? Physical activity should be dosed. Sports should be done 3-4 times a week. The recommended duration of one workout is 30-60 minutes. The load should be increased gradually. nine0026
Take proportionate responsibility. Don't take on things you can't handle.
Set realistic goals in life.

How to learn to relax.

Muscle relaxation. Switch your thoughts to yourself and your breathing. Take a few deep breaths, exhaling slowly. Mentally "walk" through your body. Pay attention to areas of stress. Relax your muscles. Slowly turn your head to the sides one or two times. Roll your shoulders back and forth. Then breathe deeply again. You should feel relaxed. nine0003

Psychological relaxation. This is also a very important moment of relaxation. Learn to imagine yourself in pleasant places: whether it is a quiet forest, a calm sea or mountains. This allows you to relax.

Relaxing music. Find quiet calm instrumental music in the store or on the Internet. Currently, there is such music on the market, specially created for this purpose.

Pressure and stress / bwell-swiss.ru

What is stress? nine0057

Pressure increase in response to stress as an adaptation

Increased blood pressure due to chronic stress or adaptation failure

How to correctly assess the level of your pressure during stress?

What is stress?

According to the classical definition, stress in medicine is usually called a non-specific reaction of the body that occurs as a response to the action of various physical factors and strong emotions (stressors) that threaten to disrupt the stable state of the body, and leading to characteristic changes in the nervous and endocrine systems. nine0003

It is widely believed that stress is always bad for a person. But in fact, stress performs the most important protective and adaptive function, launches processes that allow you to survive a stressful situation with the least losses, to emerge victorious from it. The only real danger is repetitive, chronic stress [1].

This difference is clearly visible if we consider the effect of stress on blood pressure as an example.

Increasing pressure in response to stress as an adaptation

Consider the classic situation where a person needs to publicly present and then discuss a project with colleagues.

The feeling of excitement and emotional tension grows, the body reacts to this by releasing many hormones. Adrenaline, norepinephrine and cortisol lead to an increase in heart rate, increased pressure, increased blood flow, and an increase in blood glucose levels. Such changes lead to an improvement in the blood supply to the brain, it absorbs an increased amount of glucose and oxygen from the blood, increases concentration, concentration, increases the speed of reaction, which means that a person becomes maximally collected and ready to answer any question [2]. At the same time, in a healthy person, the pressure will be within acceptable limits, not higher than 140/90.

After some time, the discussion of the project ends, the stress factor disappears and the body returns to its original state. In a few hours, the heart rate decreases, blood pressure normalizes [3]. Thus, with the help of stress, the body successfully adapted to the situation, and then returned to a stable state (homeostasis).

Such a short-term increase in pressure can be harmful only if a person suffers from hypertension or other chronic diseases. nine0003
Increased blood pressure due to chronic stress or failure of adaptation

Suppose that the same person has a "black" streak in his life. First, the child messed up at school, and had to go to the director, then an icicle fell on the car and broke through the roof, and then the neighbors also flooded the apartment. Because of this, the next day he was late for work, having received a scolding from his superiors. A day later, his previously approved project was curtailed due to lack of funding, and he was transferred to remote work due to the pandemic, depriving him of the opportunity to see his beloved colleagues live. nine0003

Such a series of stressful effects did not allow the body to fully recover, which led to a chronic increase in the level of cortisol, corticosterone and mineralocorticoid hormones in the blood, and these hormones, in turn, contributed to maintaining high blood pressure for a long time [5, 7]. As a result, there was a breakdown in adaptation, the body began to consider constantly elevated pressure as the norm, and baroceptors responsible for regulating pressure and various body systems responsible for homeostasis adapted to this level [4]. A step was taken towards the development of hypertension. nine0003
It is these people who often turn to therapists with complaints such as “jumping pressure from nerves” or “constant headache at work”. After all, any additional stress factor will cause a further increase in the already elevated level of blood pressure, leading to the development of unpleasant symptoms and the risk of a hypertensive crisis [9].

How to correctly assess the level of your pressure during stress?

It is best to measure pressure with an accurate automatic blood pressure monitor in a sitting position, after resting for 10-15 minutes. nine0003
During a stressful event and 2-4 hours after it, elevated blood pressure may be recorded [9]. However, if a person does not experience severe discomfort, and the numbers do not exceed 140-150 units of systolic (“upper”) pressure and 100 units of diastolic (“lower”) pressure, then this condition can be attributed to the normal variant during adaptation to stress.

If the pressure remains high for more than 6 hours, symptoms such as headache, dizziness, tinnitus, blurred vision, nausea are observed, it makes sense to call an ambulance or see a doctor. Also, the reason for going to the doctor can be constantly high blood pressure for several days or the appearance of similar symptoms during any emotional experiences [8]. nine0003
The best way to control your condition is with the help of an observation diary, briefly describing what exactly led to the increase in pressure, to what level it rose and what were the symptoms. Such a diary will greatly help the specialist to choose and prescribe the right treatment. It is most convenient to keep such a diary when the tonometer has a memory function and remembers the results of the last measurements.

1. Bobkov A.I., Reshetnyak D.V., Nikushkin E.V. On compensated and decompensated hormonal and biochemical disorders in clinical stress. Klin. lab. diag. – 2009. No. 9, pp. 42–43
2. Buijs, R. M., & Van Eden, C. G. (2000). The integration of stress by the hypothalamus, amygdala and prefrontal cortex: balance between the autonomic nervous system and the neuroendocrine system. Cognition, Emotion and
3. Autonomic Responses: The Integrative Role of the Prefrontal Cortex and Limbic Structures, 117–132.
4. Yaribeygi, H., Panahi, Y., Sahraei, H., Johnston, T. P., & Sahebkar, A. (2017). The impact of stress on body function: A review. EXCLI journal, 16, 1057–1072. nine0057
5. McEwen B.S. (2006). Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators: central role of the brain. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 8(4), 367–381.
6. Ostroumova, O. D., & Kochetkov, A. I. (2018). Worksite hypertension as a model of stress-induced arterial hypertension. Terapevticheskii arkhiv, 90(9), 123–132.
7. Strizhakov, L. A., Babanov, S. A., Lebedeva, M. V., Moiseev, S. V., & Fomin, V. V. (2018). Arterial hypertension at the workplace: risk factors and the population value. Terapevticheskii archiv, 90(9), 138–143.
8. Antonov, E. V., Markel', A. L., & Yakobson, G. S. (2011). Aldosterone and stress-dependent arterial hypertension. Bulletin of experimental biology and medicine, 152(2), 188–191.
9. Akagi, S., Matsubara, H., Nakamura, K., & Ito, H. (2018). Modern treatment to reduce pulmonary arterial pressure in pulmonary arterial hypertension.
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