Just like any other minor issue can gradually lead to some severe damage, similarly, stress can lead to some severe healing problems. But in reality, can stress cause a stroke?
With time, people have adopted different types of lifestyles, which have come up with many advantages. But with all these advantages, there are also certain disadvantages, which are slowly deteriorating human life.
Out of numerous problems, stress and anxiety are also one, which has grasped the mind of human with all its tentacles.
1. What Actually Is a Stroke?
Mostly it is the blood flow in our body that is responsible for the smooth functioning of our body. But when this blood flow is gradually interrupted in the parts of our brain, then a stroke occurs.
There are several reasons which can be responsible for this interruption in the blood flow. This can be because of a blood clot or a burst in the blood vessel. Any of this can happen at any time, and this can cause severe issues in your body.
2. How It Happens?
Before the stroke strikes, one can also face some earlier symptoms like muscle weakness, feeling confused most of the time, not having proper visual or even facing visual challenges, or sometimes even difficulty in speaking or speaking in a paralyzed manner.
The concerned part of all this is, that stroke has been a leading cause of making a person disabled and causing death worldwide. An unhealthier lifestyle can be responsible and increase the stroke risk.
People who have high cholesterol levels and who do not keep their high blood pressure under control have a higher risk of facing these blood clots and blockages in the arteries. Not at first you may feel, but later on, these can be responsible for you having bad health conditions, increasing the chances of you having a stroke.
3. Can A Stroke Be Caused by Stress and Anxiety?
It is very common among youngsters even these days to face a stroke at this young age, which is mostly due to this stress and anxiety. So yes, according to different research, it is found that stress in your body can be a major reason for you facing a stroke.
Stroke can be categorized into two types, which are ischemic stroke and hemorrhagic stroke. But the interesting thing is both of them have an equal risk of getting affected by stress, which can be experienced at work, at home, or even due to financial issues.
3.1 Scientific Specifications
People nowadays are going through a lot of issues, which they cannot even express in front of this world. This is what becomes a silent killer, slowly eating them up and causing them to slide toward death.
What makes this process of research more interesting is that stress and stroke do not really choose the people to affect. Rather any kind of person, who has come from any social background, economic status, occupation, or even from any educational level, goes through this stressful event.
No matter what condition you are in, or no matter what study you are studying, stressful situations are always inevitable, which associates the response between stress and stroke.
Apart from these other unhealthy habits like smoking, having an unhealthy diet for a long, having high blood pressure, and long-term stress can also create a link between stroke and stress, creating risk factors.
4. Stress, Stroke, And Lifestyle Factors
Our lifestyle decides a lot about what diseases we are going to procure and how they are going to affect our health. It is mostly the stress hormones that increase the stroke risk.
The blood pressure gets high with heavy stress, pushing the blood vessels more and more making the stress hormones rush and evacuating risk factors. So, this lifestyle also plays an important role in increasing the risk of ischemic stroke.
The fatty buildup and blood clots in the blood vessels through increased stress levels become the reason behind these types of strokes. However, the factors behind these strokes include depression, being married to the wrong person, having a lower educational level, or even chronic stress.
5. Stress and Cardiovascular Health
It is mostly the blood pressure that affects the cardiovascular health of our body, leading to higher stress levels. Stroke mainly occurs when our heart rate becomes too high to pump the blood properly.
The increased blood pressure increases the stroke risk factors. This increased risk of stroke also affects our overall body health, by creating brain damage.
Research in 2016, found that both acute, which is short-term, and chronic, which is long-term, emotional stress can be the reason for your increased stroke risk. So, the increased risk of stroke sometimes creates more stress, not allowing you to lead a normal daily life.
In a very basic manner, it is seen that higher stress levels can affect the body’s cardiovascular health. This feeling of stress can also lead to fluctuation in blood pressure, which can also clot the blood.
5.1 How Does It Affect Our Heart Health?
Our heart is believed to be one of the most important body parts which needs to be taken care of regularly, for smooth functioning. But there are several ways that can cause your cardiovascular death, to deteriorate early.
The deterioration of heart health can lead to problems like constriction of the arteries, which basically means narrowing down them. This can make the blood pressure take a hike, arsing other risk factors.
The higher level of stress can also boost blood clotting and this can gradually lead to blood trafficking in your blood vessel. The fluctuation of the blood pressure can be from higher blood pressure to lower blood pressure reactivity.
This higher blood clotting can gradually increase the risk of the formation of the clots. With this, the blood vessels can also get obstructed. This slowly starts affecting our brain a lot, pressurizing which stroke takes place.
In the end, all it comes down to is chronic stress, which becomes the reason for stroke and can affect our body in several ways. These effects can include problems like hypertension, commonly known as high blood pressure, or sometimes even inflammation, or even high cholesterol.
6. Stress and Lifestyle Choices
Everything that affects our body at a certain time, its effect starts way beforehand than that time. Similarly, if you are feeling stressed about stroke risk, then it is way before it has started affecting you.
A high level of chronic stress can also cause people to have higher health issues. These people might be exercising very little, or having sleep deprivation, and may be active smokers. Other reasons also include consuming too much alcohol, not very healthy eating, or having weight gain, which cannot be controlled.
A healthy way of living life is sometimes a boon that should be addressed positively. People living a healthy lifestyle hardly get any risk of stroke, as they do not possess chronic stress.
These people have a good blood flow and they manage stress quite well, having a good work-life balance. Stroke occurs mainly due to higher stress, which our brain can not handle, causing high blood pressure.
But all these factors can be responsible for you having a higher risk of stroke, making it more hazardous. So, too much stress is something that has never been fruitful but has rather increased the risk in overall health.
7. What Type of Stroke Is Caused by Stress?
Although stroke has always been very harmful to the health, and a better lifestyle. However, studies, have found that there are two types of strokes that can be caused by stressful situations.
7.1 Ischemic Stroke
Comparing the two strokes, ischemic strokes are a bit lower problematic than the other one. This kind of stroke mainly occurs when the blood flow in your rain gets clotted partly.
In general, a clot is something that is caused by the buildup of fat in your blood, or sometimes even due to plaque. This breaks off the blood vessels and clogs the blood vessels. So, this is how the ischemic stroke takes place.
A stroke like this can be treated with utmost care and can also be recovered with proper treatment. But, it is also advised that the person should not take any more stress during this time. Otherwise, things can get more complicated.
7.2 Hemorrhagic Stroke
In this case, the stroke is more complicated as the blood vessel is almost partially or fully broken, which makes the situation more terrible. This rupture makes the blood spill out, breaking the surrounding tissues.
In this case, the person’s living chances are near zero. In this case, chronic stress is the utmost reason for this happening.
8. How to Handle the Strokes?
Before the major stroke hits, you, your body gets the warning of it. This warning is called a transient ischemic attack, which is also known as a ministroke or even a warning stroke in layman’s terms.
In this case, the blood flow is just temporarily blocked to the brain and this lasts for about 5 minutes or so. This makes this stroke a little different from the other kinds of strokes. You can restore blood flow by proper treatment and things can get back to normal.
These kinds of strokes are not that health risky, rather they just work as the early signs for some serious strokes in the near future. If this kind of situation is not diagnosed properly, then there are higher chance that the brain cells die, resulting in worse conditions.
Although this is not sure, still different researchers claim that higher stress levels can transform into transient ischemic stroke. So, this needs to be made aware between people and should be taken care of.
9. Steps to Prevent Stroke Risk
As we know stress levels are the main cause of stroke risk. So, reducing the stress level can help you in lowering the risk of stroke. There are different ways you can reduce stress, Some of them are:
9.1 Breathe
Making your mind and heart feel relaxed is all it takes to make you feel less stressed. While you are feeling stressed, your heart rate gets too high, and while you take slow and deep breaths, it helps your body to calm down.
So, it is better to adopt and learn deep breathing techniques, to lower your heart rate and feel more relaxed. This can gradually help in slowing the breathing and help to relieve stress.
9.2 Listen to Smoothing Music
Music always helps in calming our mind and listening to soothing music helps in achieving this faster. Hence, it is better to wrap your ears with some soothing and calming music, making you feel more relaxed.
9.3 Exercising and Taking Enough Rest
Physical body movement is also necessary for mental peace, and this can be achieved by performing exercise regularly. A walk in the evening or morning can also be good to step out from the given mindset and see a new perspective altogether.
After that, getting enough rest is also necessary for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. This needs some proper rest, which includes a healthy sleeping time.
If you sleep less, then there are higher chances that your stress hormone can be too heavy on the body. This is not a good sign for your health. Hence, enough sleep can help to reduce the effect of stress on your body.
10. Conclusion
Mental health has always been an underrated essence of the body, which we hardly care for. This makes our health condition even more miserable. This miserable health condition can slowly and steadily run towards hampering heart health and making the blood sugar level high.
Out of all the negative effects that higher stress can cause, stroke risk is one of them. But on a preventive basis, you can reduce the risks of stroke, which can be also long-term.
So, one should always try to find that calmness in life so that one can manage high-stress movements. Doing regular exercise and giving the body a proper amount of rest can help you lead a healthy life.
Last Updated on December 22, 2023 by soubhik92@gmail.com
