Can Anxiety Affect Your Blood Pressure?

Bella Breakdown

Even for the healthiest person, your blood pressure will fluctuate throughout the day. Depending on what you eat, how much sleep you’ve gotten and how active you are throughout the day can increase or lower your blood pressure.

One thing you may not know has an extreme effect on your blood pressure is your anxiety. Depending on the person, your anxiety can either lower or increase your blood pressure due to the activated fight or flight system. When anxiety occurs one can experience increased heart rate which is one of the main contributors to higher blood pressure.

Another effect anxiety can have on your blood pressure is that your ventricles can begin to contract. Now, this will either raise your blood pressure or lower it due to hypoventilation.

Also known as respiratory depression, your anxiety can cause you to begin breathing poorly which will lead to you breathing in too much carbon dioxide. This will then cause your body to operate at a weaker level and your blood vessels to dilate, lowering your blood pressure.

While anxiety can affect your blood pressure, higher or lower pressure can also trigger your anxiety. Changes in your heartbeat, dizziness, and lightheadedness can all occur when blood pressure fluctuates. These symptoms can, themselves, create anxiety or trigger panic attacks, and that in turn may increase your anxiety. However, not everyone who suffers from high blood pressure experiences anxiety.

Learn more about how anxiety affects blood pressure in the video above.