The Nervous System and Cardiovascular Disease Risk
If you’ve ever found yourself in a state of panic or anxiety and tried slowing your breathing, controlling and lengthening the exhales, you know that it’s possible to use that breath to slow a quickened heart rate and calm the nervous system. Our brain controls the cardiovascular (CV) system, but how we react when we feel stress can also instruct the heart and blood vessels on how to respond. Long-term when we don’t cope well, when chronic stress or anxiety cause the sympathetic nervous system (“fight or flight”) to stay turned on all the time it changes how the CV