Stressing About Stress

I spoke to a friend about high blood pressure yesterday. About two weeks ago I had blood pressure checks and got systolic blood pressure readings of about 136 mmHg, which is higher than the normal systolic blood pressure reading of 120 mmHg. My friend told me that worrying about hypertension is not a good idea because worrying about hypertension causes you to stress, which increases blood pressure.

This I think is a crazy idea. It is true that stress can increase blood pressure. However, if your fear or stress or hypertension makes you take action to reduce blood pressure (e.g. by reduce sodium in your diet, getting more exercise, and eating more fruit and vegetables) then you have less to worry about in the future. If you let your health get bad then in the future you will have major health problems to worry about, which will be very bad for your stress levels.