“Will my stress cause me to have a heart attack?”
I've been feeling really stressed because of my job, and it's been causing me to experience a lot of hypertension. Can this lead to a heart attack?
4 Answers
It can.
Yes, if you have a heart condition or predisposing heart disease.
Probably not in the short term, but you should treat the hypertension whatever the cause. Regular exercise can be very helpful in reducing work-related stress and giving you a good night's sleep. Challenging stress is good, oppressive stress is bad.
The hypertension itself is not likely to cause a heart attack, but the stress (both from work and from the high blood pressure) is not good for your heart. You are at risk to have a heart attack from the elevated pressures in your heart. This is different than a heart attack where your artery closes down. So, bottom line, you want to get your blood pressure under control. If you can reduce the stress at work, that would be best, but we all know that is hard to do.
