A recent study has found that people with health anxiety, also known as hypochondria and illness anxiety disorder, have an increased risk of developing heart disease. This presents a problem for the doctors who have to evaluate a person with unexplained medical symptoms, and have to explain that this is anxiety-based, rather than a medical […]
How Stress Affects Cardiovascular Health
Stress is not harmful when experienced in small doses and for short durations. However, when stress becomes chronic, then this can detrimentally affect your cardiovascular health. When you have stress, the fight or flight response, the stress response, is activated. Stress (and fear) activates the amygdala, which in turn simultaneously activates the sympathetic nervous system […]