Erin Potts, Occupational Therapist D uring your time with the Healthy Heart Program, you may have noticed stress is often referred to as a contributing factor to heart disease.
Depression can also have an impact on a person's recovery from heart disease.
Although stress and depression are two separate factors, they can both play an important role in the recovery and prevention of heart disease. The debilitating effects of stress and depression are both caused by neurochemical changes. In the stress response, the adrenal cortex releases increased amounts of adrenaline that increases the work load of many systems in the body. The result is increases in heart rate and blood pressure as well as muscle fatigue and cramping to name only a few. During episodes of depression, the brain does not release enough neurotransmitters, specifically catecholamines.