In the 1920s, heart disease accounted for 10% of all American deaths but today it’s our #1 killer. Undoubtedly, an unhealthy diet and lack of exercise are co-conspirators in this sudden murder plot to take us down suddenly and without warning. Yet researchers are now connecting the dots between heart attacks and anxiety attacks, saying that stress is mostly to blame. Stress is sometimes needed to initiate our “fight or flight” response to danger and help us escape daunting situations with a rush of energy and courage. But what happens when that stress faucet malfunctions at inappropriate times or simply does not turn off?
The life of a person suffering from attacks of stress and anxiety is full of relentless suffering. The individual feels constantly pumped up with stress, lurching from one manic rollercoaster to the next. Sometimes a specific event will trigger the panic anxiety, such as a sudden change in work responsibilities, hearing of someone’s illness, watching a news story about an assault or burglary on the news or sitting in standstill rush hour traffic. Following the event, the person may feel out of control for ten to thirty minutes, or it could spill over into the entire weekend, waxing and waning. Sometimes the panic attacks anxiety came out of nowhere and butterflies would appear in the stomach while putting on makeup, making a cup of tea or trying to fall asleep at night. Anxiety attack patients feel light-headed, confused, short of breath, sweaty and their limbs may go numb. They wonder if it will ever end or if they are crazy or if this stress can cause heart attacks?
A study from 1986 to 2008 published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that heart attacks and anxiety attacks were linked. The study looked at 735 American middle-aged men who had good cardiovascular health at the start of the study. They measured four anxiety scales looking at obsessive or compulsive thoughts, introversion and social exclusion and phobias, as well as tension and physical reactions like nausea or the propensity to hyperventilate in response to stress. Men who scored in the top 15% on any of the four scales had a 30-40% greater chance of a heart attack than their cohorts who had less anxiety. The researchers concluded that the link between panic attack anxiety and heart disease is by no means straightforward, but it will continue to be the focus of rigorous study.
Panic and anxiety attacks seem to be linked to heart troubles, doctors are finding. Men suffer most anxiety attacks panic related to work stress, whereas women reported the most panic attack anxiety from their relationships. In the “Recurrent Coronary Prevention Project,” researchers found that the most depressed men and women were the most likely to die of second heart attacks and that the depression outweighed any changes to diet, exercise or cholesterol levels. “[It] may be a deep, abiding dissatisfaction with life, a harsh condemnation of the self,” concludes head researcher Dr. Thoresen. ”It is a feeling that you never do anything right fast enough, and well enough.”
