Stress is Silently Destroying Your Heart | Future IQ

Indexed: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]If you get angry, you double the risk of getting a heart attack for the next two hours. Did you know that?

[00:00:08]>> That was a song. And jokes aside, 2 hours that feels very sudden. I mean, my heart is very healthy. Navin, >> that's what you think. But maybe not.

[00:00:18]Okay. Because today in India, heart related problems are the number one health issue. It's the top killer. 27% of all deaths are because of that. 45% of all deaths between 40 and 69 are because of that. There has been a 2 to 3x increase in this since 1990.

[00:00:40]Why? I think it is because of the increasing stress of modern life.

[00:00:45]>> Well, modern life is stressful and we have heard that stress causes heart attacks and heart problems. But I have actually never been able to figure out the connection between the two because stress is a very psychological thing and heart attacks are a very clearly biological thing. So what connects?

[00:01:01]>> Yeah. So before I explain the details, let me give you a big picture view of the biology of the heart, right?

[00:01:08]>> What is the heart? The heart is a big pump >> and what it is doing is it is pumping blood to the rest of your body. the rest of your body, especially the big muscles, stomach, brain, >> they need energy to keep going, >> which means specifically they need glucose and they need oxygen. Okay.

[00:01:27]Which is what the heart is sending out.

[00:01:29]And your blood vessels are the pipes. So essentially your circulatory system is a pump and pipes.

[00:01:35]>> Okay.

[00:01:36]>> Yeah. Okay. And one of the important things there is the speed at which the blood is being pumped through the pipes by the pump.

[00:01:45]>> Correct?

[00:01:46]>> Okay. Now we did an episode on stress and in that we talked about how there are two systems in our body which control the rate. The sympathetic nervous system called SNS is the one that increases the rate >> and that is going to you know increase the BP constrict the veins and the opposite parasympathetic nervous system called PNS which causes you to calm down it slows down the pumping and it opens the veins.

[00:02:13]>> Okay. So in the context of the pump and pipes example or analogy that you made the SNS is basically causing the pump to push faster.

[00:02:22]>> Yeah. And the PNS, the parasympathetic nervous system is causing the pump to push slower or slow down.

[00:02:29]>> Yeah. Let's let's go through this in a little more detail. Okay.

[00:02:32]>> Okay.

[00:02:32]>> SNS is causing the pump to beat faster.

[00:02:37]>> Mhm.

[00:02:38]>> And with more pressure.

[00:02:40]>> Okay.

[00:02:40]>> Okay. So, both two different things are increasing.

[00:02:43]uh and what that causes is that it is sending more glucose to the rest of the body, more fat cells being sent, more LDL cholesterol is being sent and all of that, right? Also, it is causing the pipes to constrict. Can you guess why >> constrict? I think more blood being sent would probably make them increase, right?

[00:03:04]>> No, if you constrict it, the speed with which the blood goes increases. So, you're making the oxygen reach faster.

[00:03:11]>> Okay. Right.

[00:03:12]uh and it also causes the blood to become a little more viscous. Okay.

[00:03:18]>> Okay.

[00:03:18]>> So all of this is the SNS >> sympathetic nervous system.

[00:03:22]>> Yeah. Now the opposite when you need to calm down PNS it causes the heart to beat slower >> heartbeat slow down >> and it causes the each beat to also use less power. Mhm.

[00:03:35]>> It reduces your BP >> and it takes away the glucose from the body and it says well what should I do with all this glucose? Let us store it in the long term for you know future.

[00:03:46]Okay. So it is extracting glucose not putting glucose into the bloodstream >> u right >> and reducing the viscosity of the blood to normal. Okay this is the basic setup.

[00:03:59]>> Okay >> now let us look at what happens with stress. M >> okay so first thing to realize is that the SNS and PNS both can't be active at the same time obviously because they're going in opposite directions >> right >> now stress means you know we evolved for stress to be like oh lion is coming to attack me >> right which means that you want to run fast or you want to fight or something like that so all the organs in the body need blood right that is why which means that stress releases hormones which cause the SNS to go in high gear.

[00:04:38]>> Correct?

[00:04:38]>> Right. Okay. Now let us see what is happening with our pump and pipes. Okay.

[00:04:43]Pump is beating faster.

[00:04:45]>> Pipes are constricting themselves and pushing uh blood faster >> and because of the constriction and the speed the pressure that the blood >> that is going through the pipes the pressure is higher. Okay, that is fine.

[00:05:02]But if the stress becomes chronic stress, if you're constantly stressed out throughout the day, every day, >> what happens is that the PNS never activates.

[00:05:13]>> Okay.

[00:05:14]>> And activation of PNS, I remember from the episode, is necessary for your heart to get rest.

[00:05:20]>> Yeah. I imagine if your building motor was constantly running the motor would run uh you know uh >> it'll burn out >> it will burn out and even if that doesn't happen just the water going through at very high speed the pipes are going to wear out right let's look at what exactly happens that is exactly what happens right it's not complicated so higher BP okay blood going through the pipes at a very high pressure now think of what is happening to the smaller pipes now Imagine that you know you have a garden hose like big fat hose which is sending a lot of water through and then that branches out into smaller and smaller pipes.

[00:06:00]>> The pipe at the end has a pretty thin wall >> and it is getting a lot of >> water coming through it >> coming through it at a high pressure.

[00:06:09]>> It can't handle that right and it realizes that this is happening all the time not a once in a while thing. How is that little pipe going to compensate? I mean our body is an active living thing right when that little pipe notices that blood keeps coming here at very high pressure >> and I am in danger what is it going to do >> it is going to thicken so >> it is going to thicken the way to thicken is to >> you know put deposits on the inner walls there >> that does two things right it makes them rigid >> right if your pipes are thicker they don't they're not flexible anymore and now it becomes harder for the blood to pass through, >> right? Next time the same high pressure doesn't produce the same effect. So your heart has to pump even more to get the same oxygen to the rest of your body.

[00:06:58]>> It becomes a vicious cycle. The heart pumps harder, the pipes become thicker.

[00:07:02]So the heart has to pump even harder.

[00:07:04]>> Fully logic. Okay. Second logical thing.

[00:07:06]I said, you know, imagine this system where you start with a big fat pipe and then it keeps forking, right? So there are like these Y forks >> everywhere in your body. M >> imagine the effect of Y forks right blood is coming through here at a very high speed >> and then it hits >> the wall >> the wall of the fork right so at the Y fork there is danger of the blood vessel bursting at that point >> yeah because the straight line force is on that little bit of wall that is separating the two >> so that little bit of wall gets some slight damage >> okay do you know how our body reacts to damage like this.

[00:07:48]>> Uh it sends in repair mechanisms.

[00:07:52]>> Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. So it sends in fatty foam cells, C reactive protein, right? Uh basically this is inflammation.

[00:08:00]>> Yeah.

[00:08:00]>> Right. Inflammation is your body's method of repairing things. Okay. So if you have a swelling, that's your body repairing things. Unfortunately, if you are constantly sending inflammation through your system to repair every Y fork, uh right, so this is now going to cause a buildup of stuff there and inflammation. Okay.

[00:08:23]>> And that stuff is usually scar tissue because any inflammation is repaired by using scar tissue. I remember from my biology.

[00:08:31]>> Absolutely. Yeah. Now, here is where things get worse, right? The SNS makes the blood more viscous.

[00:08:39]>> Can you guess why?

[00:08:41]>> Everything has to have a very simple nice logic. Okay. No, no things just pulled out of the hat.

[00:08:48]>> Yeah. I'm trying to think of why. Uh, one reason. Sorry.

[00:08:52]>> No. Go ahead. Go ahead.

[00:08:53]>> One reason I was thinking of was because uh you are sweating so you're losing water so it becomes viscous.

[00:08:59]>> No. No. The thing is that you know you're stressed because a lion is going to attack you.

[00:09:04]>> Yeah. Right? So you are worried that when the lion attacks you, you are going to bleed >> and you would like clotting to be faster so that you don't lose a lot of blood.

[00:09:15]So the body intentionally makes the blood thicker >> when you are stressed.

[00:09:22]>> Okay.

[00:09:22]>> Okay.

[00:09:24]>> To increase the chances of clotting. Now because of this the platelets in your blood they clump together. Okay. In addition, the SNS is sending lots of fat and glucose uh to your cells so that they can be used as part of this fight, right? They all get stuck in clumps because the blood is viscous >> and they end up at this Y fork where there is repair repair work going on and because they're clumpy, they get stuck there and they keep getting deposited.

[00:09:55]Right?

[00:09:56]>> So that is scar tissue plus fat deposits which is essentially plaque. plaque. A little bit of plaque is good because it is protecting that wall from damage.

[00:10:06]>> But if you are stressed constantly, you end up with a lot of plaque. So now you have like this big lump of goo sticking there at that fork and then next time a high pressure uh stream comes there that whole plaque might get dislodged and then it will go and block an artery later on and cause a stroke of some sort. Right.

[00:10:28]>> Yeah. Because the stroke is essentially blood not reaching where it is supposed to and blood being blocked by what is typically plaque.

[00:10:35]>> Again, just to be clear, there is a pipe. There is plaque sitting here somewhere on the side of the wall. And normally blood is flowing through the little opening left between the plaque and the wall. Right?

[00:10:48]>> But now the whole now a sudden surge comes and it dislodges the plaque. Now the plaque is floating and a little later the pipe forks again and becomes smaller and smaller. At some point the plaque chunk which is floating is bigger than the size of the pipe. Things get blocked and then the parts on the other side of that block don't get blood don't get oxygen and that tissue starts dying >> and that is basically what a stroke is or a paralytic stroke is. Uh if it happens in the blood vessels going to the brain then you suffer a stroke. If it happens anywhere else then you suffer paralysis or >> also now let's look at the effect of all of this on the heart itself right continuous SNS continuously high BP out right continuously your heart is beating fast and it is beating with higher power your left ventricle which is doing this now imagine if you made someone uh pick up a heavy weight continuously for 24 hours with just the left hand what would happen >> the left and will get stronger, >> right? Yes, that sounds like a good thing. But what is happening is now the left ventricle, the muscle is getting thicker and thicker, right?

[00:12:02]>> Problem with that is that the thicker the muscle is, the more oxygen it needs, >> right? And the coronary artery, the artery which is providing blood to that vessel might not be able to provide enough blood or enough oxygen to that.

[00:12:17]And this suddenly causes your left ventricle to become less effective at pumping blood and it could cause an irregular heartbeat. Okay, that's called left ventricular hypertrophy. Okay, so I mean basically but you know big picture is that if this motor has to keep pumping faster and continuously with more power and more per second obviously it is going to cause wear and tear there. Yeah, >> correct. But you gave the example of uh exercising and that actually made me think of the fact that when we are exercising we are actually making the heart beat faster on purpose.

[00:12:55]>> Doesn't that cause the same problems that you described?

[00:12:58]>> No, not really. The reason is that exercise is practice. Okay.

[00:13:04]>> Okay.

[00:13:04]>> Exercise if you did it continuously for 24 hours it would cause the same problems. The thing is exercise stops.

[00:13:12]>> Oh yeah. Exercise has I mean even during the exercise there are built-in breaks and after some period of exercising you stop and you rest. Exercises teaches you both how to ramp up the SNS very quickly and then how to calm down also very quickly. Right.

[00:13:30]>> Right. The rest is where the parasympathetic nervous system gets activated. I >> correct. Yeah. So the second part is very important. Learning how to ramp up SNS quickly is important. Learning how to ramp it down is also important, right?

[00:13:46]>> Okay, so that makes sense. The calm down and the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system is why exercise is actually beneficial for the heart >> because it acts as practice for the heart. But then we also calm down after stress.

[00:14:00]>> So the same thing should happen when we are in periods of calm when even though there is chronic stress, we are actually calm. Well, no. I mean, that's the whole definition of chronic stress, which is that you are not calming down, right?

[00:14:13]The direct stressor is gone. So, at least you don't think there is stress, but the body is still in that stress uh feeling, right? So, imagine that you get an email from your boss and that causes stress because your brain is dumb enough to not realize the difference between a lion attacking and a boss's email. But now if this happens I mean modern workplace is such that email is continuously coming at every ping you don't know for sure whether it is a nasty email from your boss or just your bank wishing you happy birthday right so constantly even without you realizing it every email that comes in makes your SNS go up and >> this happens often enough the PNS just gives up saying what is the point on me even trying to calm this guy down because before I start a new one comes Right? So that is basically what is happening.

[00:15:09]>> The workplace and social media or reading all those nasty tweets is also giving you a stress response. Doom scrolling is causing problems. All of this is making your SNS very strong and your PNS is just you know taking a vacation right >> and >> and the way to identify this I think would be to check your heartbeat and uh if it is more than the typical resting heartbeat for a nonstressed person then you should realize that you are constantly under stress and that's not good for your heart. Yeah. And there is a whole bunch of reasons for this, right? I'm just talking about emails from your boss, but there's a bunch of other reasons, right? So, for example, there are some people who just have a personality. It's called a type A personality, right? The people who need to win, right? Everything is a competition for them. So, pretty much anything that happens is a stressful event for them. So those are the guys who are quick to anger and quick to a flight or flight response and they do get heart attacks more often. Right?

[00:16:11]Another thing is that your social standing in society can cause stress and the related heart problems. Right? This has been shown in monkeys. Okay? Because if there is a stable hierarchy in those monkeys, right? So the people at the top, they know they are at the top and they can go around harassing and bullying the monkeys at the bottom, which means that the monkeys at the bottom are constantly stressed. They never know when one of the higher ranked monkeys will just come and start hitting them around, right? This actually happens.

[00:16:47]>> Yeah, it does. Conversely, if the hierarchy is not stable, right, which means that the guy at the top is constantly being toppled by somebody just below, then all the people at the top are constantly stressed because they're never sure when somebody will come and try to topple them from the top of the hierarchy. Right? So either way depending on the situation if it is a stable hierarchy people at the bottom constantly stressed unstable hierarchy people at the top constantly stressed right >> okay that makes that funnally makes sense I'm laughing but it actually makes sense >> oh but laughing can also be a problem right happiness can cause a heart attack okay triumph extreme joy right recovery from a threat right Because even positive excitement causes the SNS heart starts beating faster and there have been cases >> of people >> lots of cases. So you know >> in fact uh usually football world cup is when you get to hear of these cases where fans either pass away due to excitement or due to uh depression and grief.

[00:18:00]>> Yeah. Yeah. Football World Cup is a very famous study which shows that during a world cup the number of heart attacks uh increase but not just that right >> uh it could be something like an earthquake >> right the earthquake itself didn't cause anything but the stress from that causes people to die but even uh the the you hear news of somebody close to you dying or got in an accident or something like that right so that can cause you to have a heart attack the thing they show in movies >> is actually what happens >> actually happen and in fact it's called the broken heart syndrome. Uh okay. Uh so all kinds of stuff uh related to you know stress causing your heart to go nuts and you die. Simple thing is that any of these things put your SNS in high gear sends a gush of blood throughout your body and that can dislodge one of the deposits of plaque.

[00:18:55]>> Yeah.

[00:18:56]>> And ultimately cause a heart attack.

[00:18:58]Right. I mean is so true and so unironically true.

[00:19:06]>> I didn't even think that would be possible. So now obvious question comes up is how do I protect my heart?

[00:19:13]>> Yeah.

[00:19:13]>> From I mean >> one obvious answer is to not have chronic stress.

[00:19:18]>> Yeah. Ah I mean so you know I mean once you understand the pump and the pipes uh the answer is obvious right that try not to have your SNS keep going into overdrive right which also means that teach your PNS to actually come back to work and not take a vacation. What does this mean?

[00:19:41]>> Sleep better. M >> okay sleep is where the PNS is doing its work all the time and stress is nowhere to be found because you know you're asleep uh we're going to do an entire episode on sleep uh so take a look at that very important okay the other is aerobic exercises right because that is practice quick SNS quick PNS quick SNS quick PNS so both of them learn to work with each other and so if you have done enough exercise, you have a PNS that knows when to come in and slap the SNS down and say, "Okay, now we are going to calm down." Right.

[00:20:21]>> Right.

[00:20:22]>> Third is mindfulness, meditation, yoga, pranayam. Okay. All of these teach you to strengthen your PNS, right? Because the thing is when you take a deep breath that is SNS. When you leave breath out that is PNS. Pranayam is causing your PNS to kick in every time, right?

[00:20:45]Teaching you that.

[00:20:46]>> Uh, okay. I mean, I have I have some other questions about this which we will discuss later, but that seems very um >> well there is research proving these things. So, it's not like wishy-washy u you know, alternative therapy. But yeah, of course, you know, slow down your drinking. Uh but I don't drink.

[00:21:11]The other thing is so that's for your heart and SNS PNS. The other thing is improve the quality of your pipes right the blood vessels that is called improve your vascular health. So again uh exercise which is causing your blood to flow and then calm down uh right a brisk 10 minutes walk per day >> has been shown to yield but good results right smoking that is pretty bad for your vascular health. Okay, >> if you have diabetes, bring it under control because that is also bad for your blood vessels.

[00:21:43]>> If you have cholesterol, obviously reduce that because that is what is getting deposited in the blood vessels.

[00:21:49]>> Correct?

[00:21:50]>> Improve your diet, reduce fatty food and so on, right? But breathe, right? long exhale, box breathing, >> yeah, >> pranayam, yoga, which is, you know, exercise plus controlled breathing. Just that's the best combination of all the things I have listed. But also, like you said, >> reduce stress, which means reduce the triggers, avoid the things that cause anger or anxiety, right?

[00:22:20]>> Which means >> quit your job if it's a bad boss.

[00:22:24]>> Stop watching the news. We have an entire episode on that. Okay.

[00:22:28]Significantly improve the quality of your social media. We have another episode on that. Okay. Don't overexert yourself physically and so on. Right.

[00:22:38]And of course, of course, of course, >> medication when necessary. Ask your doctor. Don't self-medicate, but you know, if you notice problems, if your BP is high, take medication. Modern medicine. Right.

[00:22:50]>> Yeah. But that also means you have to keep track of your BP. You have to keep track of your resting heart rate. You have to keep track of those numbers.

[00:22:57]Don't obsess over them, but do keep track of them because I also realized that the uh the things that stress causes to your heart. The pump and pipes example that you gave >> uh a they can happen to any person which means it can happen to someone who's fat, someone who's thin but with fat people there is also the fact that your heart has to pump harder to make blood reach all the vessels.

[00:23:22]>> Yes. Absolutely. because your body is carrying all of that weight. So, I need to Yeah, I I know I need to lose weight.

[00:23:28]Thank you very much for that.

[00:23:30]>> But, uh yeah, this this gives me a scientific motivation to lose weight.

[00:23:34]>> Yeah.

[00:23:35]>> Yeah. Wow. I didn't realize that uh this is what stress did to heart. I mean, I had I had a sense of it because I knew that stress does cause uh problems for your heart. But this the pump and pipe example is what clarified it for me.

[00:23:52]>> Yeah. See, I think the important thing, the takeaway message as far as I'm concerned is that a lot of people think of stress as some psychological thing, right? Something in your head.

[00:24:04]>> But that is not actually true, right?

[00:24:06]Stress is a physical thing happening in your body. It is hormones being sent out to different parts of your body and they are making changes in what your body is doing. Specifically once you physically see that right there is a pump there are pipes and there is the stuff being pushed through all because of stress then you realize the importance of reducing stress right >> and the other thing to kind of keep in mind is that you know you get angry and then you might forget your anger >> but your arteries will remember right >> okay that's wow that's very nice as a visual M >> you will get angry and you will forget but your arteries will remember. So >> help them also forget >> basically I think basically this is a small part one subsection of what stress is doing to you. Stress is doing many more things to you. Uh so if you like this check out our episode on stress is literally killing you.

[00:25:06]>> Yeah. And it's not just the heart. It is killing you in many different ways. We line that episode up for you next. Uh any thoughts, any questions, any comments, please feel free to put them here or in the WhatsApp community. We will try and have a discussion there as well. QR code on screen, link in description. Sriad Naven, Future IQ.