Can Anxiety Cause High Blood Pressure?

Can anxiety cause high blood pressure? Anxiety can lead to increased levels of stress, changes to hormone levels, and increased blood pressure. All of this can cause severe secondary issues. Anxiety causes high blood pressure, and high blood pressure leads to chronic vasodilation or inflammation, which leads to cardiovascular complications or other serious health concerns. 

Thankfully, if you are worried about how anxiety causes high blood pressure, you can utilize multiple forms of stress management to reduce your anxiety levels and subsequently get control over your blood pressure. 

Centric Behavioral Health offers top-rated addiction treatment centers across the U.S. Contact us today to learn more about how our dual diagnosis treatment can help.

Can Anxiety Increase Blood Pressure?

Many people worry about correlations between health problems and mental health problems. Those same individuals might ask, “Can anxiety affect blood pressure?”

Yes, anxiety can indirectly raise blood pressure, and left untreated, that can lead to a host of very severe health issues.

Can Anxiety Cause High Blood Pressure? Vasospasms and Anxiety

While most people are exposed to the concept that stress is bad for you, on a deeper level, very few people are exposed to the long-term impact that stress can have on the body, such as chronic vasodilation resulting in coronary vasospasms, hearing loss, nerve pain, and Bell’s palsy. Unmanaged stress can manifest in the form of what feels very much like:

• Nerve damage
• Heart attacks
• Paralysis

People experiencing severe stress might turn to drugs or alcohol as a form of self-medication. But drugs and alcohol can exacerbate these issues and lead to secondary physical and mental health problems. 

Can Anxiety Affect Blood Pressure? Options for Treatment

If you are struggling with high blood pressure and untreated anxiety, it’s important that you learn to cope with your symptoms successfully by focusing on healthy nutrition, meditation, physical activity, yoga, and other mindful activities. 

Yoga

Yoga teachings have been shown to improve mental health among clients and help avoid relapse after treatment.

These practices can help alleviate stress and pain by focusing the mind on the present moment and what things are within control. Yoga also teaches clients to return to the breath whenever things get overwhelming, understanding that even when the physical pose or other elements in life are uncomfortable, that discomfort will pass, and everyone has the power to return to and focus on their breathing.

What Yoga Can Do

• Teach clients to sit with discomfort and appreciate that uncomfortable feelings are temporary
• Develop meditation techniques
• Focus on breathing, one thing that is within client control (even when everything else is outside of client control)
• Form physical strength
• Participate in social activities 

Mindfulness

Mindfulness practices encourage clients to observe how they are thinking and feeling at any given moment and to accept all of those thoughts or feelings without judgment. Research indicates that integrating mindfulness practice, meditation, and yoga can help clients avoid relapse.

What Mindfulness Can Do

• Teach emotional regulation 
• Improve communication with others
• Encourage social bonds
• Help clients focus on their feelings and how those emotions manifest physically

Meditation

Studies indicate that meditation used in conjunction with other therapy can improve mental health among those who are receiving mental health treatment and reduce the risk of relapse for those receiving substance abuse treatment.

There are many forms of meditation, just as there are many forms of talk therapy. Different facilities will specialize in a variety of meditation options. Seated meditation is what most people think of when they picture someone meditating, and it might be the best option depending on how you are feeling each day.

Things like recovery and mental health treatment can offer different challenges each day, and in some cases, meditation might be better achieved by sitting down, lying down, or walking.

Eating meditation can be practiced while enjoying meals at a treatment center or at home. Walking meditation can be practiced at a treatment facility on any designated path or even in a bedroom. 

What Meditation Can Do

• Teach emotional regulation
• Learn how to sit with uncomfortable emotions instead of trying to numb them
• Be aware of the present moment instead of worrying about the future or the past

Additionally, facilities like Centric Group can connect you to professional therapy and treatment centers where these and other anxiety management skills can be acquired. In some cases, your dress management and anxiety levels might require things like medication management, another aspect of treatment that can be provided by professional organizations.

Reach out to Centric Group today to learn more about the relationship between anxiety and your health.