This refers to the present stressful situation in Kashmir. Everybody is living in the stressful conditions e.g., death of loved ones, not able to move freely (restraint stress),  living in constant fear (social stress) , not able to earn (economical stress), students not able to continue their education and administrators striving to maintain law and order. In short, everyone is under stress.
    Stress arises when a person is not able to respond appropriately to emotional or physical problems. When a person is in stress, brain senses the fear and sends signals for the release of excessive hormones. These hormones trigger a series of responses like rise in blood sugar, increase in heart rate and  blood pressure to get  the body ready for the response. Enormous amount of scientific research is published proving that stress, both long term (a continuous stressful situation  for weeks, months) or  short term  (stressful events occurring for few minutes or even for seconds) can cause damage in cardiovascular system.
It is also known that people with pre-existing cardiovascular ailments are more susceptible to the stress induced cardiovascular damage.
One of the most  important ways to minimize stress induced cardiovascular damage is to perform physical activity. Research shows that daily physical exercise can minimize stress induced cardiovascular damage. People in stress tend  to be less motile and it worsens the situation. So daily physical exercise eg.,walking for  at least 30 minutes daily (considering the present situation, it can be  in the lawn of home) may help to protect heart from negative effects of stress.
People smoke more cigarettes when they are in stressful situation, which worsens the already deteriorating heart and blood vessels. So the best will be to quit or at least avoid cigarettes as much as possible.
Diet has an important role in cardiovascular health. Eating high fat diet is unhealthy for heart, while as, consuming more fruits and vegetables have good effect.
Common salt in food and tea should be reduced as it may  help to reduce hypertension to some extent. If somebody starts to feel changes in blood pressure or heart rate, it is a better to seek professional help.
Finally, trying to relax, thinking positive, and learn to deal with the tough situations may help reduce stress itself

Dr. Mirza Irfan Beig (Ph.D)
Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center
University of Missouri-Columbia
USA

Lastupdate on : Sun, 17 Oct 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 17 Oct 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 18 Oct 2010 00:00:00 IST