Stress and Health

The universe gives us stress and it is our job to cope with it. Hans Selye described stress as the result of any demand on the body, be it mental or physical. This description encompasses the stress we don’t like to admit that accompanies positive situations such as weddings. Frankly, how many times have you heard of the bride coming down with a cold right after her wedding? There is plenty of scientific literature to back up the relationship between stress, driven by either positive or negative factors, and physiological mechanisms involving the immune, cardiovascular, endocrine, and many other physiological systems in humans.

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Examples from Blood Pressure Research

Most of this information is based on research conducted at the University of Miami during the 1980’s and 1990’s. A reference list will be provided via e-mail requests to SusanS@Chronic-Connections.net

You know those blood pressure monitors that you can buy at the drug store? Well, imagine having a small version of one of those that straps to your body and records your blood pressure automatically every 20 minutes. Then also imagine checking off a diary card similar to the one below each time your blood pressure is recorded. You could find out a lot about yourself that way!

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The graphs below pretty much describe the findings of ‘official’ research in this area.  First, let’s look at the impact of physical stress on blood pressure:

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It may be surprising to see how much higher blood pressure can be when the body is physically stress.  Because of this, researchers try to control for physical stress when examining the effects of psychological stress on blood pressure.  The graphs below summarize this line of research.

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Hmmm.  All in all, it appears that our mothers were right.  According to them, which is supported by these blood pressure data, we should stay at home with your family, avoid stressful situations and overexcitement, stay calm, don’t get angry, and for goodness sake, stay away from strangers! But aside from our tongue-in-cheek application of this research, the major point to recognize here is that both physical and psychological stressors have an impact on our bodies and too much of this can cause us harm, particularly for those of us who are battling chronic conditions.

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