Stress and Congestive Heart Failure: A Deadly Combination

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Controlling stress is a vital part of managing congestive heart failure. Implementing tactics to remove or minimize stressful situations in your life will make symptoms easier to control and lead to a longer, happier life.


Stress is a formidable force in the lives of many people in this world today. While stress may not seem to permanently affect people, it is a very serious cause and/or aggravation to medical conditions a person has. First, it is important to discuss what the true definition of stress is. If asked, the average person on the street might say that stress is anything that causes worry to one’s life. They might give examples like arguing with a spouse, financial problems, or children’s bad behavior. While these are examples of one kind of stress, stress is also much more. By definition, stress is the body’s reaction to change that requires any kind of change or response. Besides emotional and mental reactions to these changes, the body experiences physical responses as well. Stress is a very normal part of life and depending on how one reacts to it, can be positive or negative. While this is true, many people let stress affect them negatively.

The human body is capable of experiencing stress and reacting to it. A way that stress can be positive is to keep people on their toes and ready for anything. However, if stress is taken the wrong way, it becomes negative. One way that stress can become a negative influence on a life is if a person begins to go through continuous challenges that prove stressful and has no respite from these challenges. While a human being is emotionally capable of handling stress, seemingly endless tests of our strength may discourage a person and start affecting their health in a negative manner such as the person becoming over-worked or extremely tense.

This type of unrelenting and continuous stress can be very destructive. This can lead to a condition called distress, a negative reaction to stress. Such physical symptoms that can ensue with distress are headaches, upset stomach, insomnia, high blood pressure, and chest pain, just to name a few. Medical studies show that it is possible that stress can cause or worsen symptoms of diseases. If stress is not reacted to in a calm and rational manner, it can definitely be a force to be reckoned with. The statistics of how many people are vulnerable to the negative effects of stress are surprising.

Forty-three percent of adults suffer from adverse health effects in connection with stress. Surprisingly, people do take their sufferings to the doctor, because 75-90% of doctors’ visits are related to symptoms and ailments of stress. Not only is stress a danger on a personal level, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has declared stress a true hazard of the workplace. Not only does it cost the employee money, but American industry loses $300 billion annually due to stress. The existence and or lifetime continuation of emotional issues is greater than 50% due to unresolved stress issues. Stress can also make diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, and heart disease worse.

Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), in short, is a condition of the heart when the heart does not have the capability to pump blood properly. This condition is caused in large part by unhealthy diet, unhealthy lifestyle, and heredity, among other things. This serious and life-threatening disease is exacerbated by the existence of stress in the life of someone diagnosed with it. If stress has such an effect on otherwise healthy adults, imagine the incredible emotional, mental, and worst of all, physical consequences of stress on someone lacking complete functionality of his or her heart. Stress can make a huge difference in the longevity of the life of a person with CHF. It is so very important to minimize situations that are inductive to stress so that the quality of life is tolerable for the patient. Being diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure, an incurable disease, is difficult enough without adding the pressures of excessive stress into his or her life.

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• Know Your Odds for Heart Failure (nlm.nih.gov)

Stress and ageing on the immune system

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As ageing is associated with immunological changes, the effects of stress and age are interlinked where a deregulation of the immune function can have a significant impact on physical health. On the other hand stess can both enhance and increase the effects of aging, with older adults often showing greater immunological impairment to stress than younger adults. Therefore a good immune response is essential to our good health. In the same way immunological alterations and disturbances can influence the progression and severity of a variety of disorders and diseases, including stress related disorders.

Also stressful experiences very early in life can alter the responsiveness of the nervous system and immune system. It is possible that prenatal or early life stress may increase the likelihood of altered immune responses to stress in late life. One such alteration to the immune system includes a decrease in the ability of white blood cells (immune cells) to carry out their key functions. One great example is temporary stress as seen in students during “examination stress”. This has been seen to slow down wound healing.

Children of mothers who are routinely stressed during their pregnancy show decrease in immune function compared to children of undisturbed pregnancies. Similarly young children who experience abuse or neglect show abnormal cortisol levels indicative of a dysregulated stress response.

Cortisol is a hormone secreted by the adrenal glands and involved in glucose metabolism, blood pressure regulation, maintenance of insulin release, suppression of inflammatory responses. Cortisol is elevated following several stress disorders. Several stressful experiences can cause in areas of the brain involved in memory an “imprinting” during fetal development and early life can alter the responsiveness of the endocrine, immune, and central nervous systems for many years.

An understanding of such interlinked effects of stress and age is important to understand and to determine the mechanisms involved, so that we can develop effective interventions in early and late life.

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• What Is Stress? How To Deal With Stress (medicalnewstoday.com)

Is the term "Anxiety Disorder" over used?

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The term "Anxiety disorder" has become a jacket term, covering many unique forms of abnormal anxiety, fears, phobias and nervous conditions. All of these conditions come on suddenly and prevent an individual from continuining daily routines.



Of the several different types of anxiety disorder these are the most common:

- Claustrophobia

- Social anxiety

- Specific phobias

- Obsessive-compulsive disorder

- General anxiety disorder

- Post-traumatic stress disorder

- Agoraphobia

- Panic disorder

- Separation anxiety disorder



Usually all of these disorders or conditions are chronic, and lifestyle restricting. Alot of times individuals will be born with their condition, but it is also known that they can begin suddenly after a triggering event. Stress is a known factor which will increase in their persistence.



There are several drugs available on the market that treat these disorders. They are drugs like benzodiazepines and antidepressants.

A good counselor or behavioural therapist is often able to treat the disorders through use of cognitive therapies.



It is important to know that anxiety is a complicated combination of the feeling of fear and worry. It can occur as a primary brain disorder, but is often times associated with other medical problems. Anxiety is most of the time said to have a cognitive, an emotional, a somatic and a behavioral component. All of these components make up the whole, which is Anxiety.

In it's chronic state Social Anxiety Disorder can be disabling, and prevent individuals from completing daily tasks, although with the help of drugs and therapies many of these individuals can battle the disorder and continue on with their lives.

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• Social Anxiety Disorder (slideshare.net)