Can my feelings put me at risk for heart disease?

Are your negative feelings putting you at higher risk of heart disease? Discover the link between your emotions and cardiovascular health.

Studies have found that feeling stressed, angry, hostile, depressed or other negative emotions can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. This is because these feelings have a corresponding physical reaction in the body.

Chronic stress can boost your blood pressure. In one study, people who said they usually felt pressed for time, ate too quickly and got upset when they had to wait were twice as likely to develop hypertension as those who walked through life more relaxed.

Mental stress also impairs the endothelium, the protective barrier that lines your blood vessels, which paves the way for a series of inflammatory reactions that lead to fat and cholesterol build-up in the coronary arteries and ultimately a heart attack.

Stress can also make you gain weight. Uncontrolled stress increases levels of the hormone cortisol, which directs fat storage straight to your waistline. Cortisol makes you more likely to overeat, especially refined comfort foods such as candy and chips, which trigger feel-good, tension-lowering hormones.

The correlation between emotional health and heart health is indisputable. Studies show that depression can double your risk of developing coronary artery disease or having a heart attack. Likewise, anger, impatience and hostility significantly raise your risk of heart disease. In one large study, people who scored highest for feelings of impatience or hostility had an 84 per cent greater risk of developing high blood pressure than those who scored lowest.

As such, the answer to the question of whether your feelings can put your heart at risk is an unambiguous "yes."