Avoiding stressful moments can be difficult living in today’s society. But new research about the impact of stress on your heart may make you want to try.
This week on “Take Care,” Dr. Peter Gianarosshares his research and advice on the risks stress has on the heart. Gianaros is an associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.
Gianaros says the research into the link between heart disease and stress is new and ongoing. New technology has allowed researchers to have opportunities that they never had before to look inside the brain and examine what’s going on when a person is having a stressful or anxious experience, he says. The goal is to relate particular brain activity to changes in the body that might put that person at risk for developing heart disease in the future.
The research uses human neuroimaging methods to examine how the brain links stressful experiences or negative emotions with risks for cardiovascular disease.
In Gianaros’ study, the participants are inside of an MRI scanner, so researches can monitor how different emotions impact the brain.
Different methods are used to evoke different emotions. Volunteers look at visual images that could provoke disgust, fear or sadness and for stress, and they perform tasks that involve processing conflict, working under time demands and pressure and uncertainty. Gianaros said the volunteers may get negative feedback on their progress during the task from a computer or another person. And to examine anxiety, researchers have people silently prepare to give a public speech.
As a result of these tests, Gianaros says activity changes can be seen in brain areas that are important for feeling and experiencing emotion.
“Essentially what we’re trying to do is connect activity in these emotional brain areas with simultaneous changes in a person’s heart and vascular function,” Gianaros said.
The subject’s blood pressure is also measured with a standard blood pressure cuff, and the rhythm of their heart is measured with an electro cardiogram to look at the pulse rate.
Afterwards, Gianaros says they connect that brain activity to established indications of cardiovascular disease risk.
Researchers are finding that stress can be as much of a risk factor for future heart disease as something like cholesterol levels.
“Other established cardiovascular risk factors, for example family history, age, those are certainly more important,” said Gianaros.
