Life Stress and Cardiovascular Disorders

An amassing body of data demonstrates further the growing importance to medicine of the recognition that, for man, reactions to threats in the form of symbols, especially when sustained, may be more important than response to assaults. Certainly, many aspects of cardiovascular disease may be looked upon as functions of man's goals, his methods of achieving them, and the conflicts they engender. In this paper the importance of life stress to the cardiovascular system in various conditions is discussed; case examples demonstrate the relationship between stressful situations and circulatory efficiency, faulty exercise tolerance in patients with or without structural heart disease, the hypodynamic response, cardiac arrhythmias, electrocardiogram, blood pressure, hypertension and renal blood flow.