Dr. Manisha Arora, Director of Internal Medicine, Birla CK Hospital (Delhi, India), said that stress can cause temporary high blood pressure. When you are worried or panicked, your body releases the hormone cortisol, which causes your heart to beat beat faster and your blood vessels to constrict, leading to a sudden increase in blood pressure.
When stress is gone, blood pressure often drops again. In the hospital, doctors can use anxiety medications to help stabilize, or combine small doses of blood pressure medications if the index is still too high.
However, according to Dr. Manisha Arora, the heart and blood vessels do not distinguish between high blood pressure caused by stress or underlying medical conditions.
If blood pressure remains high for a long time, the risk of damage to the body still exists. Therefore, doctors often recommend close monitoring, including measuring blood pressure multiple times a day or performing 24-hour mobile monitoring (ABPM) to determine the condition.
If after stress management, blood pressure is still high, this is a sign of hypertension. Supplementary tests such as an ultrasound, eye drops or a kidney ultrasound can show long-term effects, thereby confirming the need for regular treatment.
Dr. Arora emphasizes that chronic stress combined with an unhealthy lifestyle, smoking, drinking alcohol, being sedentary, eating unbalanced and not getting enough sleep will increase the risk of prolonged high blood pressure.
In these cases, taking medication combined with lifestyle changes is necessary to control the disease.
Stress can be a trigger, but it is not always the only cause. Early detection, regular monitoring and lifestyle adjustment are key to protecting the heart and maintaining stable blood pressure.
