The Link Between High Blood Pressure And Anxiety

In everyday stressful situations it is anxiety, which is a normal reaction to stress, that helps a person cope. When the anxiety escalates into excessive, irrational dread of normal everyday situations, then it ceases to be a coping mechanism and becomes a disability. At this point, professional help is needed to understand and treat this anxiety disorder.

However, when looking at high blood pressure and anxiety, we need look no further than daily stress and its effect upon the body especially in connection with raising blood pressure. Since anxiety is a normal reaction to stress, manage the stress - reduce the anxiety.

How Does Stress Affect The Body?

Our ancestors, while living in caves, had a built-in mechanism that allowed them to survive. The mechanism for survival is referred to as "fight or flight" and it allowed them to run to save their lives or to stay and fight. In both cases, the response to the stress resulted in them taking part in a physical activity.

Modern men and women are not so lucky. Everyday we are bombarded with stressful situation such as: oversleeping, being late for work,accidentally dumping coffee on work clothes, having more bills than money at the end of the month - it goes on and on and on. These are just a few of the many hundreds of ways stress can affect us at home, work, or socializing. The thing is, when we are stressed and the chemicals that are being dumped into our blood to give us the ability to run or fight aren't used - they stay circulating in the blood causing damage to our bodies. This is one reason why, when in a stressful situation, someone may say "take a brisk walk". The brisk walk will pull the stress chemicals into the muscles and the physical activity of walking will get rid of them without harming the body, just like our ancestors.

Taking a brisk walk may not be a possibility for the person that has just experienced a stressful situation. When this is the case, there is another option and that is "deep breathing" exercises that can be done while sitting in a chair or lying on the floor.

Our bodies need to have stress in order to function normally. The good type of stress is called eustress. When stress advances past the point of helping to motivate us, it is then that it becomes distress, or bad stress, and our overall health is jeopardized. Many researchers have found that over eighty percent of all visits to a doctor's office are related either directly or indirectly to stress. There are three specific areas of intervention that can lower the impact of stress on our lives. They are deep breathing exercises, dietary changes, and physical activity.

Since you can do breathing exercises anywhere and at any time, this should be the first activity that you turn to when in a stressful situation to reduce high blood pressure and anxiety:

1. Lie down or sit in a chair. If sitting in a chair keep your feet flat on the floor, feel yourself relaxing into the chair, then begin. If you do this exercise lying down, sometimes it is more comfortable to put a pillow under the knees and head.

2. Rest your hands on your stomach. We are basically shallow breathers, we never take a deep breath. By putting your hands on your stomach, you force yourself to suck the air all the way down into the lower part of the lungs, which then pushes the stomach out.

3. Count to four very slowly and breathe in through your nose as you do. You will feel a rise in your stomach. Hold the air in your lungs for a second.

4. Slowly count to six while you exhale through your mouth. To control how fast you exhale, purse your lips like you're going to whistle. Your stomach will slowly fall. When you think you have exhaled all you can, try and exhale a little more air.

5. Repeat 3 times.

You will find that once you have mastered this exercise, you can do this while standing as well. You do not need to place your hands on your stomach but you will need to count to four as you breathe in, hold it for a couple seconds, and then count to six as you exhale. You should wait just a second and then repeat the exercise once again. This exercise should be done three times in stressful situations.

An individual performing deep breathing exercises may also experience a feeling of being lightheaded. After becoming used to filling the lungs with oxygen, the lightheaded feeling will stop. This is one of the most incredible interventions that can be done throughout the day to counteract stress.

Keep in mind that anxiety is a common reaction when stress is involved. When you begin practicing this form of stress management, you will be working towards reducing your high blood pressure and anxiety naturally and safely.