Cardiovascular disorders

• How stress can lead to CVDs

  -Impact of stress hormones on heart rate:

  stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, directly increase heart rate by triggering flight or fight response, causing rapid heartbeat when body perceives a stressful situation.

  Can lead to long-term health issues.
• How stress can lead to CVDs

  -Impact of stress hormones on blood pressure:

  Stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, causes a temporary increase in blood pressure by making heart beat faster, meaning blood vessels narrow so raises blood pressure. If it's prolonged stress it can lead to a sustained high BP and lead to hypertension.
• How stress can lead to CVDs

  -Indirect effects of stress:

  Mood adapts so could pick up drinking or drug abuse as a hobby.

  Poor sleep can lead to irregular blood pressure patterns, with spikes at night, putting additional stress on CV's.

  Eating an unhealthy diet that's high in fat will harden arteries and increase risk of heart attack.
• Wilbert-Lampen acute stress and CVD's

  -Looked at incidents of heart attacks during football matches played by Germany in world cup.

  -Found that when Germany played cardiac emergencies increased by 2.66 times compared with control period.

  -Appears that acute emotional stress watching your favourite football team can double your risk of suffering a cardiovascular attack.
• Yusef studied chronic stress and CVD's

  -examined chronic stressor on the interheart study.

  -Studying 52 countries, seeking to identify major risk factors to CVD's that occurs in different cultures.

  -They compared 15,000 people who had a heart attack with similar number of people who did not.

  -They found several chronic stressor with strong links to heart attacks, including workplace stress and life events.

  -Can conclude that stress not only contributes to development of CVD's in first place but making existing disorders worse.
• Evaluation

  -Correlational research: cannot establish a cause or effect relationship. Could be that other lifestyle factors like poor diet and alcohol consumption contribute to a heart attack, not solely based on stress of a football game.
• Individual differences

  -There are differences in the way individual respond to stress. For example, personality type can mediate response of the immune system to stress.

  -Type A often more likely to perceive stressful situations as stressful experience heightened negative emotions and struggle effectively with stress management leading to anxiety.

  -Type B described as easy going, relaxed and patient. They handle stress well and remain calm.