Part 1
Strokes and Heart Attacks

Part 2
Inflammation, Germs and Atherosclerosis

Part 3
Spasm

Part 4
Blood Clots

Part 5
Stress

Part 6
Inflammation, Strokes and Alzheimer's

Part 5
Stress

Stress is defined as the sum of the body's reactions to adverse influences. Often, we can feel the effects of stress because it is accompanied by an activation of the sympathetic nervous system. The activation of this system can provoke strong cardiovascular changes, such as rapidly raising your blood pressure and heart rate. That's why episodes of acute stress are strongly felt inside of us. 

Moments of stress are often a trigger for strokes and heart attacks. Here's why.

An artery is designed to react quickly to moments of stress by contracting or expanding in response to the signals it gets from the many nerve fibers that connect it to the sympathetic nervous system.

When an artery is diseased by cholesterol plaque, it is much more likely to collapse into spasm as a result of stress. The force of the spasm cracks open the plaque, releasing soft cholesterol, which produces a blood clot. The clot can occlude the artery at the site of spasm or be swept away by the bloodstream, causing an occlusion further down the artery. Either way, the result may be a stroke or heart attack.

Most people assume that only physical influences (such as shoveling too much snow on a winter morning) can cause the stress which leads to heart attacks. But did you know that chronic mental stress has a much more important role to play than physical stress as a trigger of strokes and heart attacks?

Mental stress is a bit difficult to define, but its effect on your arteries is very real. On a small scale, mental stress accompanies many of the tasks that we attend to every day. These tasks usually involve some level of frustration or mental effort—solving an arithmetic problem, speaking in public, memorizing facts for an important test and so on.

Mental stress has much the same affect on your blood vessels as physical stress does―it causes the arteries to contract or dilate, often with surprising swiftness. (A blush is the almost instantaneous dilation of blood vessels of the face.) The artery spasm caused by mental stress can be so strong that it crunches cholesterol plaque, breaking it open and allowing the formation of dangerous blood clots.

Mental stress can be a chronic condition; your blood vessels can be affected for long periods of time. For that reason, and because mental stress is not readily observed, the cumulative affect on your arteries can be very dangerous, eventually provoking a stroke or heart attack.

It is possible to detect the effect of mental stress on your arteries with the non-invasive and painless Sit-Down Stress Test, an invaluable tool that safely predicts your risk for a heart attack. For a full discussion of the risks of chronic mental stress and how to detect it with the Sit-Down Stress Test, read  The Heart Attack Germ or continue forward to Part 6 - Stroke and Alzheimer's.

Part 1
Strokes and Heart Attacks

Part 2
Inflammation, Germs and Atherosclerosis

Part 3
Spasm

Part 4
Blood Clots

Part 5
Stress

Part 6
Inflammation, Strokes and Alzheimer's

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