Why stress is bad for the heart

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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers around the question of why stress is considered "bad" for the heart, particularly in comparison to the benefits of exercise. Participants explore the physiological differences between emotional stress, such as anxiety from exams, and physical stress from exercise, examining the implications for heart health.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • One participant questions the difference between stress from exams and the stress of exercising, noting that both situations increase heart rate.
  • Another participant suggests that the key difference lies in the chronic nature of stress from exams compared to the acute nature of exercise, which is typically short-term.
  • A participant expresses confidence that physical exercise is more stressful for the heart than mental stress, emphasizing the intensity of physical exertion.
  • There is speculation about the hormonal responses to stress, with a participant wondering which hormones are detrimental when activated repeatedly over time.
  • One participant highlights the similarities between emotional and physical stress, particularly regarding the sympathetic nervous system's response, while emphasizing the frequency and duration of stress as critical factors.
  • Another participant provides a link to an external resource discussing the relationship between stress and heart attack risk.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the nature of stress and its effects on the heart, with no consensus reached on the relative impacts of emotional versus physical stress. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the specific physiological mechanisms at play.

Contextual Notes

Participants mention the complexity of stress responses and the potential for chronic stress to have long-term health implications, but do not resolve the nuances of these physiological differences.

fluidistic
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why stress is "bad" for the heart

Hi. I don't understand why stress is "bad" for the heart while exercising is "good". For example I'm having a final exam tomorrow worth 100% of my grade for a course and I'm having a huge stress (I feel adrenaline rushes almost permanently). I'm also used to run 10 km twice a week and so I know how painful running is (extremely painful). In both cases the heart beats much faster than when at rest, but I don't understand why stress would be different from say running, for the heart.
 
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You might find "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers", by Robert Sapolsky a good read. It is a really well written, not super technical, treatment of stress and its relation to diseases.

Its been a few years since I have read it so I am fairly hazy on the details but the big take-away is basically that you are correct. Stress is stress whether it comes from exercising or freaking over an exam. The difference between the two is that the former is a very acute condition (IE you exercise for an hour a few times a week) while the latter tends to be chronic (stressing for a couple of weeks straight around exam-time). It is the condition of chronic stress and the accompanying metabolic/hormonal cascades which lead to the detriment of health in the long term. Basically it reinforces the idea that too much of anything is a bad thing.

Again, if you are very interested you should check out the book.
 


First of all thanks for the book suggestion.
Yanick said:
Stress is stress whether it comes from exercising or freaking over an exam. The difference between the two is that the former is a very acute condition (IE you exercise for an hour a few times a week) while the latter tends to be chronic (stressing for a couple of weeks straight around exam-time). It is the condition of chronic stress and the accompanying metabolic/hormonal cascades which lead to the detriment of health in the long term. Basically it reinforces the idea that too much of anything is a bad thing.
Actually I'm very confident that exercising in the gym or running is much, much more stressful for the heart than freacking out for an exam. Keeping a running rhythm for 40 minutes at your maximum capacity is extremely painful and the heart is working much harder than when one has a mental stress. In fact I do not know if it's possible for the heart to work even harder without breaking itself. And it's well known that exercising a few times a week is good for the heart.
I am guessing the difference really comes to what you mentioned: the hormonal cascades. I wonder which hormones that pop ups when we're stressed are "bad" when applied for a long time and repeatedly over days.
 


I'm no expert on the physiology of stress myself. I've jus done a bit of reading on the subject.

You are both correct, there are differences between exercising strenuously for an hour a few times a week and constantly worrying about exams, bills, career etc.

The point is that there are also many similarities IE sympathetic nervous system tone/fight or flight etc.

The HUGE difference between the two situations is the frequency and duration of the stress. In essence, constantly freaking out about things doesn't allow ones body to 'calm down'. Meaning there is a constant amount of low intensity 'fight or flight' going on. It's not necessarily about the magnitude of the stress response at any given time point because them exercise would be horrible for you. It's more like an area under the curve type of deal. Exercise gives a lot of stress in a relatively short amount of time with a good amount of recovery time to allow for adaptation whereas finals leave one in a state of low level stress for very long periods of time.

You can also look up Selye's GAS model/principle for further reading.
 


Greg Bernhardt said:
I'm no expert, but I'm sure there are many physiological differences between emotional/mental and physical stress.

here is a brief overview
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/stress-heart-attack-risk

I'm stressing out from reading the list of warning signs - I seem to have about 95% of them :bugeye:
 

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