Can psychological stress cause high blood pressure?

The current mainstream understanding in academic and clinical circles is that long-term and sustained psychological stress is indeed a clear cause of elevated blood pressure, but accidental short-term stress generally only causes transient blood pressure fluctuations and does not directly lead to hypertension. The reactions of different individuals vary greatly.

You must have had this experience. When you are about to give a speech or have stayed up late for several nights to meet a deadline, your pulse will beat faster than usual. Occasionally, you will feel your head is bloated. At this time, your blood pressure will probably be 10~20mmHg higher than usual. This is actually a condition of your body. The normal stress response - sympathetic nerve excitement, the secretion of hormones such as epinephrine and norepinephrine that constrict blood vessels increases, which is equivalent to temporarily adding some pressure to the blood vessels. When the stress event passes, the hormone levels fall back, and the blood pressure will naturally return to the normal range. There is no need to panic at all.

However, there are also different voices in the academic community. Some studies believe that simple psychological stress cannot directly cause essential hypertension. It can be regarded as a "catalyst" at best. Only people who have susceptibility factors for hypertension - such as those with family genetic history, high-salt diet, and excessive body fat percentage. If you are under high pressure for a long time, your blood pressure will rise repeatedly and cannot be reduced, and it will gradually develop into pathological hypertension. People who have no susceptibility factors and have healthy daily habits, even if they often face short-term stress, as long as they relieve themselves well, they will basically not suffer from high blood pressure directly due to stress.

When I was doing follow-up work on chronic diseases in the community, I met two young designers from the same company. They were both 28 years old. Last year, they both took on an award-winning project and worked on it for more than three months. During the high-pressure period, both of them had their blood pressure close to 140mmHg. One of the parents is a patient with high blood pressure. They don’t like to move at all. Every takeaway meal they eat is spicy and salty. A review half a year after the project ended showed that the blood pressure is still around 145/95. Essential hypertension has been diagnosed and now it needs to be controlled with medication. ； The other usually plays basketball three times a week, and even if he works late, he will take 10 minutes to do a few sets of stretching and deep breathing. Less than a month after the project ended, he was tested again, and his blood pressure returned to the normal level of 118/76, with no problems at all.

Of course, you can’t make it just because you don’t have susceptibility factors. If your blood pressure keeps fluctuating up and down, even if it doesn’t develop into high blood pressure immediately, the damage to the vascular endothelium will gradually accumulate. Just like a rubber band that is always pulled repeatedly, its elasticity will become worse over time. These damages will later become potential causes of high blood pressure. When you are under high pressure, you may want to check your blood pressure twice more. If it is still high after several days of rest, you need to adjust your rhythm early. Don't just try to remedy the problem after it persists.