Can anxiety cause high blood pressure?

Anxiety is intense worry or fear that can result in physical symptoms. These symptoms include nausea, increased heart rate, faster breathing, muscle tension, sweating, and spikes in blood pressure. It’s important to note that the spikes in blood pressure due to anxiety are typically temporary and aren’t usually long-term high blood pressure problems.

Anxiety starts the stress response cycle in the body, and that process releases stress hormones. The stress hormones increase the heart rate and cause a narrowing of blood vessels, which contribute to the spike in blood pressure found with anxiety.

If you’ve ever been to the doctor and had your blood pressure come up high and require a second reading, you may have had a spike in your blood pressure due to anxiety about being at the doctor’s office. Anxiety-caused blood pressure increases are temporary, so in this example, as you relax over time during your doctor’s appointment when it is measured again, it’s likely to be lower.

Although the increase in blood pressure due to anxiety is temporary and will subside as anxiety reduces over time, having chronic high levels of anxiety can cause health issues. This includes damage to kidneys, blood vessels, and the cardiovascular system, as seen with medical hypertension or long-term blood pressure problems.

Adding to the importance of addressing anxiety is research that shows that people with intense and frequent anxiety are at a higher risk of experiencing medical hypertension than people without anxiety or with lower levels of it. Leaving anxiety untreated also increases the risk of behaviors that cause long-term high blood pressure. These behaviors include:

• Use of alcohol and other substances
• Eating an unhealthy diet or overeating
• Using tobacco

Anxiety can also cause a drop in blood pressure because of the shallow breathing that sometimes accompanies anxiety.

Treating anxiety is key to managing blood pressure problems that occur as a result of it. Treatment for anxiety may include medication, therapy, or a combination of both. Therapy can help you learn how to identify triggering thoughts, events, and situations and skills to help you manage anxiety.

Lifestyle changes are also commonly recommended in the treatment of anxiety. These may include improving your sleep, increasing exercise, learning meditation, and other relaxation practices, and increasing your time with your support network.