Can stress cause a heart attack?
Severe sudden stress can occasionally trigger a heart attack. The risk is in a heart already primed by narrowed arteries. Extreme grief can also cause a temporary condition that mimics one.
The bigger story is slower: chronic stress raises blood pressure, disturbs sleep, and pushes smoking, alcohol and comfort eating, all of which feed heart risk over years.
Managing stress is heart care, not a luxury. So is knowing the emergency signs: pressure-like chest pain, spreading to arm or jaw, with sweating or breathlessness means calling for help now.
Source: NHS, heart attack
See a doctor promptly if
- Palpitations with fainting, near fainting, or blacking out for a moment
- Palpitations with chest pain, pressure, or breathlessness at rest
- A racing heart that starts during exercise rather than while resting
- A fast or irregular heartbeat that lasts more than 30 minutes and will not settle
- A close relative who died suddenly and unexpectedly before the age of 50
- Palpitations in someone with known heart failure, a previous heart attack, or a weak heart muscle
Try two minutes of guided breathing2 min, free, nothing to installNot a treatment for anything. It is the one thing on this site that does something in the next two minutes.
Answered by the AskDoc Medical Team · Medically reviewed under our Medical Director, MBBS · How we review
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