10 Effects of Anxiety on the Body

Even Short-Term Stress Can Affect Your Body — Especially Your Heart

When you’re stressed, your heart rate goes up and so does your blood pressure. Most people can handle these kinds of physiological changes in stride. “Cortisol is released when you feel stressed, but the level of this hormone should go back down when the stressful event is over,” says Jennifer Haythe, MD, a cardiologist and codirector of the Center for Women’s Cardiovascular Health at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City.But even short-term stress can have a profound impact on your heart if it’s bad enough. The condition cardiomyopathy, also known as broken-heart syndrome, is a weakening of the heart's left ventricle (its main pumping chamber) that usually results from severe emotional or physical stress