THE specific BLOG

Can Stress Cause High Blood Pressure

According to a 2023 study more than 122 million people have high blood pressure in the United States. That’s a ridiculous number considering all of the potential risks that come along with having high blood pressure. It seems to be a marker or cause for a lot of other chronic health challenges that people face as well. It brings me to the question of what really causes high blood pressure, and can stress cause high blood pressure?

I personally really believe that stress can cause high blood pressure!

The worst part is when you have high blood pressure the thought of it can stress you out which in turn can create higher blood pressure. Let’s get into how stress might be causing your high blood pressure.

How Stress Can Cause High Blood Pressure

Let’s start by looking at the stress response. The adrenal glands create a hormone called cortisol and this hormone is released into your bloodstream when you experience stress. An effect that this hormone has on the body is to increase your heart rate and increase blood pressure. This is a healthy response and is how the body is supposed to react when you’re in a really stressful situation. Imagine an adrenaline rush, that’s kind of what we are talking about but not as severe. With that being said, a study has shown that increased cortisol levels lead to increased sympathetic nervous system activity…which is the part of the nervous system that is in charge of the fight or flight response.

With all of that being said this study looks at the sympathetic nervous system and concludes that increased sympathetic nervous system activity has a correlation with causing high blood pressure. Of course what we eat and our day to day activities play a role in high blood pressure but it seems like the nervous system may play a more important role…and this can all be traced back to stress.

Stress is a funny word or idea as most people view stress as something mental or emotional and never actually look at the physical or chemical sides of it. Carrying excess weight is a stress on your body, not mentally but physically! There is more weight which puts more stress on your bones and joints, more blood flow needs to take place so there’s more stress on your heart, and so on and so forth. Eating or drinking too much sugar is a stress on your body, this causes inflammation within the body which ends up being a stress that causes a lot of other issues. I guess the point that I’m getting at is that stress for sure can cause high blood pressure, in more than just the mental emotional way we think of! Getting your nervous system right can make a huge impact in how we handle stress and how our blood pressure looks.

Get our Nervous System In Check for Blood Pressure

By now we have a little bit of an understanding how the sympathetic nervous system may cause high blood pressure as that is in charge of our fight or flight mode! How can we actually fix this and get ourselves out of high blood pressure, high stress, and back to a healthy person?

The answer to this question lies within the nervous system as this is what is triggered whenever we have any sort of stress going on in and around our body. Luckily there are multiple things we can do to help balance our nervous system. One that is really obvious if you are struggling with high blood pressure is your diet. It’s important to eat foods that are anti-inflammatory. Any sort of inflammation is going to cause the body to work harder and in turn increase your blood pressure. I tell everyone to shop the perimeter of the grocery store. The perimeter of the grocery store is going to have all the food that is perishable, meaning it’s not going to have a lot of preservatives and artificial flavors. With that being said, avoid things that say “low fat” or “fat free.” I know this sounds opposite but when something has the fat taken out guess what is added to replace the flavor? SUGAR! This increases inflammation in the body! Focus on organic whole foods, this will make a difference within your body.

Something else you can do is exercise and breathwork. You can choose to do one or the other, or do both! Both of these have been proven to decrease stress and lower blood pressure. The biggest thing with both of them is to get started. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t an expert at either of these, a little bit everyday will make a drastic difference, even if it’s just a walk around the neighborhood.

Lastly the work we do at The Specific Chiropractic Centers has been shown to not only reduce stress throughout the body but also lower blood pressure. We focus on getting the nervous system back in balance and making it go from a fight or flight state which causes high blood pressure to a calming, resting and digesting state…which is what we are primarily supposed to be experiencing. The care we provide isn’t something that has an overnight effect, it is something that takes place overtime as it takes multiple visits over months to make the long lasting change that we’re looking to achieve.

If you are struggling with high blood pressure and wonder if stress can cause high blood pressure then I hope you know by now that it definitely does! I also hope you understand that it isn’t just mental emotional stress that causes it but things like what you do physically and the things you eat plays a role in high blood pressure as well. The key resides in the nervous system and getting your body to better adapt to the stressors we encounter on a daily basis. There are multiple at-home things you can do to counteract stress and get the nervous system working better, and there are also things we can do at The Specific Chiropractic Centers Naples that will help you out as well. If you have any questions or concerns don’t hesitate to reach out!