Emotional stress causes a negative chain reaction within your body. If you’re angry, anxious, tense, frustrated, frightened, or depressed, your body’s natural response is to release stress hormones called cortisol and adrenaline. They prepare your body to deal with stress and cause your heart to beat more rapidly and your blood vessels to narrow to help push blood to the center of the body. The hormones also increase your blood pressure.
After your stress subsides, your blood pressure and heart rate should return to normal. If you’re continually stressed out, though, your body doesn’t have a chance to recover and this may damage your artery walls.
Stress’s link to high blood pressure and inflammation is dangerous because both are known risk factors for heart disease and other heart problems.