Psychological Stress and its Effects on Coronary Heart Disease

This essay delves into the significant connection between psychological stress and coronary heart disease (CHD), a leading global health concern. It emphasizes how stress, encompassing factors like socioeconomic conditions, personality traits, and negative emotions, contributes to CHD. The essay highlights the alarming statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO), illustrating the high mortality rates associated with cardiovascular diseases, particularly in low and middle-income countries where individuals often experience heightened psychological stress. It explores the various symptoms of CHD, such as shortness of breath, chest pain, and irregular heartbeats, and underscores the role of long-term psychological stress and depression as primary risk factors. The essay also examines the impact of stress on the heart rate, cardiac output, and blood pressure, emphasizing the need for identifying psychological causes to design effective rehabilitation programs. Furthermore, the essay discusses the impact of psychological stress on both physical and mental health, and the importance of managing stress to prevent or mitigate the risk of CHD. The role of social networks, the impact of emotions, and the potential for preventative measures are also discussed, stressing the link between mind and heart, and highlighting the need for further research in this area.

Running Head: Psychological Stress and CHD
Psychological Stress during Coronary Heart Disease
Essay
System04104
2/18/2020

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Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) and Psychological Stress
Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the leading health issues in the world and a
large number of people die in the world because of coronary heart disease. It is also crucial to
know how heart disease can increase the chances of psychological stress in a patient. Even
the psychological stress can also affect the heart and leads to many issues related to physical
and mental health that has been described in this essay with some crucial evidence of stress in
illness. There is a huge importance of psychological and behavioural aspects in prevention
and treatment of coronary heart disease and its importance is continuously increasing day by
day. The purpose of this essay is to show the effects of psychological stress in the coronary
heart disease in individuals and provide evidence for the efficacy of psychological
interventions in patients with CHD.
Cardiovascular disease or coronary heart disease and psychological stress share a
common epidemiology, thus the fundamental suggestions to overcome these two diseases
generally linking these two types of different disease together. It has been observed that
patient’s socio-economic conditions, personality traits, biological causes, and psychological
factors all can be responsible for the course of coronary heart disease (Potijk, Janszky,
Reijneveld, & Falkstedt, 2016). According to World Health Organisation (WHO), coronary
heart disease/cardiovascular disease are the major reason of death globally and more people
die annually from heart disease rather than any other disease. According to WHO, 17.9
million people died from CVD in 2016 and it is 31% of total global death. Most of the people
who are facing issue with coronary heart disease are died from hypertension or high
psychological stress or depression. However, it has been seen that most of the deaths, which
causes from heart disease are reported in low and middle-income countries. WHO has
reported in 2016, more than 17 million people died premature death (Andonian, et. al., 2018).
Among them, 82% people died in low and middle-income countries where people have to do
huge struggle for their daily life and they have heavy psychological stress for living a healthy
life. Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the leading causes of deaths in people in
cardiovascular disease (CVD) in which blood vessels stops supplying the heart muscle. It has
been seen researched and observed that coronary heart disease is a situation, which is caused
by blockage of blood vessels to the heart or brain. However, one of the leading causes of
blocking blood vessels to heart is psychological stress that causes a large number of deaths
every year all around the world (Saeidi, Komasi, Soroush, & Heydarpour, 2018).

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It has been seen that normal cardiovascular disease attacks suddenly and people have
no idea about the disease to tackle immediately. However, there are certain psychological
aspects that are responsible for coronary heart disease and these psychological causes must be
identified in advance, which can help the patients to deal with such type of serious disease. It
has been seen that people who are suffering from depression and anxiety are serious victims
of coronary heart disease while people. However, the precise links between coronary heart
disease and psychological stress cannot be established clearly from an epidemiological point
of view (Kachur, et. al., 2017). However, the psychologists have found that negative
emotions and tension between family members some of the major causes of heart diseases.
The relationship of psychological stress with brain and heart should be understand and the
link between these three factors must be identified before designing any specific strategies in
rehabilitation programs for those patients who are suffering from coronary heart disease. It
has been found in USA that people with strong social networks having very less of heart
disease because they enjoy their life and share their problems with people and friends
(Shiozaki, et. al., 2017).
The major symptoms of coronary heart disease can be seen in form of shortness of
breath, heavy pain in chest, and irregular heartbeats, and fainting. It has been seen that most
of the people faces difficulty in balancing and facing difficulty in walking. It has been also
seen that people feel discomfort in their arm or shoulder and lift their hand during coronary
heart disease (Pedersen, von Känel, Tully, & Denollet, 2017). It has been found that people
have coronary disease generally victim of long-term psychological stress or depression issue.
Hypertension and a wide range of stressful feeling as emotions are some the leading causes of
heart problems. However, the daily diet of people and heavy consumption of junk food
cannot be avoided in the case of various heart diseases. It has been found that out of 17
million people who this issue because of their stressful life died from the coronary heart
disease, 72% of people face. However, one cannot avoid the stress in their life but it is easy
for people to manage their psychological stress to stay away from such type of dangerous
disease that can take life in the matter of seconds (Esler, 2019).
One cannot avoid stress in their life and it comes from several of common physical
and psychological causes such as not taking enough sleep or fighting with someone who is
dearest to a person both can lead to high amount of stress for a person. Emotional feeling and
high work pressure are some common causes of stress (Berntson, Quigley, Norman, &

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Lozano, 2017). Apart from this, worrying about not having enough money or death of loved
ones can also affect the heart of a person because these all situations create psychological
stress for a person. Apart from this, stress comes from some less dramatic causes such as
everyday obligation and pressure that forces a person to out of his or her control and cannot
manage the situation. However, if these situation and causes of stress if not managed by a
person then it directly affect the physical health of a person and it is all known that heart is of
one of the important body parts that provide life to a person be more affected by any type of
psychological stress (Bernstein, 2016).
The relationship between psychological stress and heart disease and sudden death of
people has been recognised from the distant past. It has been seen that people consider the
heart stroke as the natural disaster rather than looking it a cause and effect with psychological
stress. People who face stress in their life, particularly job stress or family stress are major
and primary victim of coronary heart disease. Stress is one of the common patient complaints
and in cardiology, ‘stress’ is taken as serious factor because it has a strong connection with
brain and heart. It has been seen that the impact of psychological stress can directly be seen
on the heart rate, cardiac output, or on blood pressure. These things are really happening
when patient feel anxiety or high degree of stress (Chauvet-Gelinier & Bonin, 2017). The
hemodynamic and neuroendocrine responses to stress and it is characterised by the impact of
it on the heart rate and blood pressure of the person. In addition to this, the evidence suggests
that a patient who is suffering from susceptible symptoms of coronary heart disease generally
face mental or psychological stress before the coronary attack on patient. The evidence states
that the stress can affect the paradoxical arterial vasoconstriction in diseased coronary vessels
with damaged coronary endothelium (Rogers, 2016). This is really a major issue with a
coronary heart patient because when a person takes stress in his life, it will directly affect the
functioning of heart. It has been found that different emotions have powerful impact on heart
and it is also noticeable that the connection between psychological stress and its connection
with heart is still under process of research because it is also connected with brain as well
(Wirtz & von Känel, 2017). In such as a scenario, study of stress in order to find out the
causes of coronary heart diseases or acute heart issues is the fundamental duty of medical
professions in order to protect people from premature death. In 21st century, many health
professionals and scientist proved the relationship between mind and heart and impact of
anger, fear, and emotions on heart and brain (De Hert, Detraux, & Vancampfort, 2018). The
researcher found that how different kind of feeling in brain influence the heart and its

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functioning and how pulse rate easily effected with the psychological stress. It has been
discovered that heart is more than only an organ to supply blood to our organs and pumping
blood for the body. It has been noticed that every emotions such as pain, feeling, and
hypertension is directly connected with brain, which is functioning with the help of our heart
that supply blood to the brain as well. Therefore, the behaviour and personality traits of a
person also related to psychological stress and with brain functioning that further connected
with our heart. Both long term and short-term stress somehow associated with the functioning
of heart (Bergmann, et. al., 2017).
It has been discussed in a research paper that there has been strong evidence found
that it is a strong causal relationship between coronary heart disease and psychological stress
of a person. However, it has been discussed in the research that the high amount of stress can
also increase the chances of heart diseases (Schiweck, Piette, Berckmans, Claes, & Vrieze,
2019). In 1988, the National Heart Foundation of Australia published a report, in which it has
been described that acute catastrophic events directly affect the acute myocardial infraction
that leads to the sudden death of a person. The concept of heart attack generally has been seen
when people feel so happy or facing some high level of stress that directly affects the blood
pressure and heart rate of the person, which leads to heart attack (Albert, et. al., 2017). Apart
from this, there are many strong evidences that psychological stress such as depression and
anxiety are some strong independent risk factor for clinical CHD and its prognosis. Stress
affects both physical and mental health of people and also dangerously effect the functioning
of heart and brain. Issues related to coronary heart disease have several reasons and causes
but psychological stress is one of the common reasons among them (Cohen, Gianaros &
Manuck, 2016).
It has been noticed that psychological stress such as anxiety, depression, and coronary
heart disease generally occur together. However, there is large number of incidents that
depression and mental stress are some high risks factors just like as alcohol and cigarettes
that trigger the chances of coronary health issues. Stress is the leading cause of many
diseases, which are related to brain, heart, or other organs of the body. Stress not only effect
the health of both men and women in equal manner rather it also effect the daily life of
people and create some real worse problem in the family (Carroll, Ginty, Whittaker, Lovallo,
& de Rooij, 2017). Stress forces most of the people towards the drinking and consuming
alcohol, which is really a challenge for the people because it also further affect the heart of

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person who consumes high amount of smoking in their life. However, it can be said that
mental stress is the primary healthcare issues, which is responsible for many other chronicle
diseases. Although CHD may be preventable and it is very cost effective to stop and prevent
chronicle disease like coronary heart disease if a person stay happy in his life and avoid those
things that causes psychological stress to the people (Richards, et. al., 2017).
There are various reasons behind stress and one of them is social isolation of a person.
It has been found that a person who is isolated form the society generally feels a high level of
stress because he or she cannot share his or her problem with other person (Raic, 2017). This
will lead to some serious mental issues such as stress, anxiety, depression etc. Therefore, lack
of social support is one of the independent causes and leading drive factor for the coronary
heart disease (Lavie, Menezes, Schutter, Milani, & Blumenthal, 2016). It has been found that
a huge number of people in population avoid the risk of stress and they do not care how stress
can ruin their life and the unawareness of people about the risk of psychological stress is also
a major cause of heart issues. Researchers have found that stress can directly harm the heart
functioning of a person. The hormone cortisol in the body is generally released in the
situation of stress and studies says that a high level of cortisol from long-term stress can
trigger the blood pressure level and cholesterol level in the blood that further effect the heart
rate which leads to several strokes and coronary heart disease in a person (Vaccarino, et. al.,
2016). High blood pressure, high cholesterol in the blood, and blood sugar are some of the
high risk factors for heart disease and most of them arise in the boy because of high level of
psychological stress in the body. However, stress can also affect the plaque deposits in the
arteries that further affect the heart rate and its functioning. Even a minor psychological stress
can affect the heart and it further effect the flow of blood to the heart muscle (Potijk, Janszky,
Reijneveld, & Falkstedt, 2016). Apart from this, in this condition it has been found that heart
does not get enough amount of oxygen for its functioning and pumping function. It has been
also found that a long term of stress can also affect the blood clots. There is a high risk is
associated with psychological stress because it not only destroy the life of a person rather it
creates many health related issue for a person. If a person takes long-terms stress, then it
directly affect the process of blood clotting process, which further increase the chances of
stroke. There are various research conducted on impact of psychological stress on heart and it
has been found that stress directly affect the life of a person and force the people to choose
some unhealthy way to deal stress such as consuming alcohol and smoking (Wirtz & von
Känel, 2017). It is well known that these two factors directly affect the heart and lungs of a

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person who is addicted of it. Therefore, managing stress is as much important as caring your
heart with physical issues such as obesity and cholesterol issue. It has been found that people
respond stress in different in different way. Some people react strongly to the situation while
some people sit relaxed and do not care about the concerned situation (Raic, 2017). This will
definitely help a person to avoid the impact of stress on the body. Therefore, it is really
essential for first analyse the situation and identify the causes of stress to avoid its impact on
the body. Therefore, it is really essential for a person to control the mental and physical
reactions to these stressful situations.
In conclusion, function of heart not only depends on the daily schedule or diet of the
people, rather psychological stress also effects the functioning of heart. After analysing the
various causes of stress and its impact on human body and heart, it can be said that to stop the
coronary heart disease, it is essential to identify the causes of stress and eliminate it from life.
Stress management is one of the effective ways of managing stress in the life but it has been
noticed that people generally failed to identify these sources of stress and cannot manage it
properly that further effect the functioning of heart in both long term and short term. People
should require taking various steps to reduce the causes of hypertensions, depression, anxiety,
and anger, which is directly related with coronary heart disease and affect the brain
functioning as well. The strong issue of psychological stress can drive the person towards
various unhealthy activities and force the people towards addiction of smoking and alcohol.
The addiction of alcohol and smoking are some of the key causes of coronary heart disease.
However, in the end it can be said that a total risk approach needs to be adopted by a person
in order to manage psychological stress to avoid the risk of coronary heart disease or
incidents of heart attacks. It is also crucial for a person to arrange their daily life schedule in
proper way that helps the person to avoid the acute heart diseases. Spending some time with
social media or people outside of the work or family can also help the people to stay refresh
and avoid the chances of psychological stress in life.

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