The way the body responds when faced with "emergencies", is a feature of human evolution.

The response culminates in extra oxygen, adrenaline, vitamin C and other special bodily substances being transported in the blood to the to major muscles, in order to fortify the body with strength to aid survival; the body gets a "turbo boost" if you like.

This physiological girding of the body to "fight or flight" would have been of tremendous benefit to our prehistoric ancestors who were often faced with perhaps having to fight off a saurian lizard or a sabre-toothed tiger; or quickly getting out of the way of stampeding mammoth.

Today, however, few of us are faced with eminent danger from wild animals, but the demands and stresses on the psyche of modern society is every bit as ferocious. "Emergencies", with respect to the body's stress response, has taken on a completely new meaning.

To the individual who live in industrialised nations, emergencies may constitute every day pressures of work, screaming police sirens, relationship problems, fear of terrorism, fear of environmental pollution, perhaps alcoholism and substance misuse, high civil crime rates, worries of job security, marriage or family break-ups, ongoing feuds with neighbours…

So what has this to do with high blood pressure?

Well, because the body's stress response include more vigorous heart pumping activity with simultaneous and all around constriction of blood vessels in the body, high blood pressure will result because a greater volume of blood is being pumped through effectively smaller width blood vessels.

To our caveman this would not have been regarded as a health risk because the stresses he encountered were isolated incidents that came and went; he had time to recuperate between emergencies.

In contrast however, modern society stresses are not like that at all; it's more of a conveyor belt of crisis upon crisis. Stress does not seem to let up and there seem to be no time for a return to physiological normality between incidences.

What is more, we cannot physically fight stress in its modern formats nor can we always flee from them.

The stress response has thus turned from what was a quick temporary advantageous fortification of the body to a modern day Achilles heel in the form of persistent high blood pressure.

So how much stress does it take to brings on the body's emergency response?

Well, this is subjective, because people have varying susceptibility and thresholds to stressful situations. Perhaps a good initial way to find out if one's hypertension condition is particularly sensitive to stress is to see if one has high blood pressure related to "White Coat Syndrome" like so many sufferers of hypertension do.

White Coat Syndrome occurs if one's blood pressure readings are elevated when taken at say, the doctor's surgery, only to find a short while later those high blood pressure readings are significantly improved when taken at home or in a place less "intimidating" than the doctor's surgery.

It would appear that being strapped up to the doctor's blood pressure monitor is enough to trigger the stress response in many people who perhaps should regard themselves as particularly sensitive to stress-induced hypertension.

Another possible stress-induced ailment is arteriosclerosis, which also contributes to high blood pressure. This is a condition where the interiors of arteries become occluded with fatty deposits, which obstruct the passage of blood flowing through them. It leads to starvation of blood in vital organs.

Unaware we may be, but years of continuous exposure to stress implies a lot of nervous energy activity in the brain, which latently uses up Vitamin C; yes, stress could well cause one to become Vitamin C deficient if care is not taken with one's dietary intake, because the body cannot naturally produce Vitamin C.

Vitamin C (in sufficient quantity) is vital for conditioning the arterial walls, for without it the arteries tend to fall into a state of disrepair with cracks and fissures developing on their insides. The body's response to this is naturally to try and repair it by activating platelets in the blood, which go to work at the scenes of such arterial damage.

Platelets are the sticky components suspended in blood plasma that play a big part in blood clotting process. They quickly come together at the site of the cut and curb leaking from the blood vessel.

The problem is, fat and calcium deposits circulating in the blood tend to stick to these activated platelets at the locations being repaired, which although serves to further stop fast any potential leaks of blood, also inadvertently cause a build up of fat deposits or a bulge on the insides of the blood vessels which effectively make blood passage restricted at these places.

This is likely to be a life threatening condition when it extensively occurs in the veins of the heart or of the brain.

Unfortunately the story of platelets does not end there, for the stress response process tends to enrich blood with them as a standby for repairing cuts and severed arteries should this occur. The problem is, even when there are no injuries to speak of, prolonged increased presence of platelets in one's blood can cause clumps of clotted blood to form in the blood stream anyway, which could at any time haphazardly lodge themselves in, and cause blockages in important arteries. Again this is more serious if it occurs in coronary arteries or arteries of the brain, as it may precipitate heart or brain attacks.

The incidence of angina cannot be ruled out either. Because the body may already be on high alert from ongoing stress situations, if further severe "emergencies" were to happen then the body would try to divert even more blood to the muscles of the legs and arms in response, to the detriment of the heart.

If this were to happen, then there is a good chance that the heart could be temporarily starved of blood which is manifested by sharp pains in the chest, which is what angina really is. Anyone with regular bouts of angina really should be under the watchful eye of their doctor as there are strong possibilities of a heart attack occurring.

The content of this article is not the full stress malevolence story by any means. There is clear evidence that stress can contribute to illnesses such as ulcers, migraine, stomach aches, depression, colitis… and for worsening ailments one may already have such as arthritis, cholesterol problems and psychosomatic illnesses like asthma.

Make no mistake; subjection to prolonged stress is not only a cause of high blood pressure, it is a serious health risk that needs urgent attention.