High Blood Pressure and Anxiety

High blood pressure and anxiety are often found together, but does this mean that anxiety causes high blood pressure?

Studies have not shown any long term direct link between high blood pressure and anxiety. However, even though anxiety does not cause persistent high blood pressure, it can and often does cause temporary spikes in your blood pressure. Even though the high blood pressure is not persistent, in these cases, these spikes have the potential to do a lot of damage to your vascular system. The more frequent these episodes occur, the more damage your system absorbs.

If your episodes of anxiety are frequent, the combination of high blood pressure and anxiety together can do damage to the blood vessels, kidneys and your heart.  If the blood vessels in your kidney are damaged, they become less efficient in removing waste and fluids from your body - causing your blood pressure to raise even more. Uncontrolled high blood pressure and anxiety can lead to stroke, heart attack, and congestive heart failure.

In addition to high blood pressure and anxiety being linked, anxiety can also cause negative physical symptoms such as heart palpitation, sweating, stomach pains, and dizziness.

Unfortunately, people with high blood pressure and anxiety also tend to gravitate towards unhealthy lifestyle habits such as high fat and high salt foods, alcohol, and  smoking. High cholesterol diets and high blood pressure have been linked beyond dispute. The same is true for smoking and alcohol.

What You Can Do?

If high blood pressure and anxiety are beginning to affect your daily life, it is time to visit your physician.  You can find many effective treatment plans that can benefit both high blood pressure and anxiety.  You can visit a mental health professional to deal with your symptoms of anxiety, and you can visit an internist to help with your high blood pressure.

Measures such as diet change and adding more exercise to your daily routine are other ways you can effectively deal with high blood pressure and anxiety.  It is not easy to turn off anxiety, and doing strenuous exercise such as riding a bicycle, running, or any other sport that will get the good endorphins pumping can help you manage episodes of anxiety.

Eating foods that are fresh and minimally processed can help manage symptoms of both high blood pressure and anxiety.  You should also cut out as much sodium in your diet as possible as well.  If you stay away from packaged foods, and stick to foods that are real and recognizable, you may find yourself feeling better than you ever have in regards to your high blood pressure and anxiety.

When you are under stress, your hormones go into overdrive, as stress can be defined as the flight or fight instinct.  Having this reaction was helpful to our ancestors who lived in caves so that they could find the courage and the ability to fight or run from large predators.  We still react to perceived or real danger the same way, but instead of large predators, we fear public speaking and rejection.

Managing your high blood pressure and anxiety can help you live a longer life, and can make your personal life flourish as well.  When you are not feeling anxious all the time, you can learn to enjoy the simple joys in life again that having high blood pressure and anxiety may have robbed you of.

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