There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.
Abstract
There is an enormous amount of literature on psychological stress and cardiovascular
disease. This report reviews conceptual issues in defining stress and then explores
the ramifications of stress in terms of the effects of acute versus long-term stressors
on cardiac functioning. Examples of acute stressor studies are discussed in terms
of disasters (earthquakes) and in the context of experimental stress physiology studies,
which offer a more detailed perspective on underlying physiology. Studies of chronic
stressors are discussed in terms of job stress, marital unhappiness, and burden of
caregiving. From all of these studies there are extensive data concerning stressors'
contributions to diverse pathophysiological changes including sudden death, myocardial
infarction, myocardial ischemia, and wall motion abnormalities, as well as to alterations
in cardiac regulation as indexed by changes in sympathetic nervous system activity
and hemostasis. Although stressors trigger events, it is less clear that stress "causes"
the events. There is nonetheless overwhelming evidence both for the deleterious effects
of stress on the heart and for the fact that vulnerability and resilience factors
play a role in amplifying or dampening those effects. Numerous approaches are available
for stress management that can decrease patients' suffering and enhance their quality
of life.