Stress has a lot of different effects on the body. It can affect sleep patterns, eating habits, and your immune system — so there are a lot of good reasons to lower your stress levels.
Here’s one more: the better you cope with stress, the better your levels of good (HDL) cholesterol will be.
Recent research from Oregon State University took another look at how stress and hostility affect cholesterol. More than seven hundred men participated in a Normative Aging Study from OSU. The average age of the participants was sixty-five; they were evenly split between white-collar and blue-collar professions.
Researchers assessed the participants’ hostility and stress levels through interviews and questionnaires. The men rated their use of twenty-six different coping strategies, both healthy (like making plans or exercising) and unhealthy (isolating themselves or blaming themselves for the stress).
The more hostile the men were, the more likely they were to perceive their problems as stressful. The more hostile men were also more likely to use unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with stress.
Once the interviews and questionnaires were complete, the participants were asked to fast overnight. In the morning, their blood was tested for HDL (good) cholesterol, LDL (bad) cholesterol, and triglycerides. Researchers expected that good coping skills would lower bad cholesterol levels.
Instead, good coping skills boosted the protective powers of good cholesterol! People who had good stress-coping skills had higher levels of good HDL cholesterol. Men who had hostility and bad coping skills had worse LDL and triglyceride levels. The study authors believe that the amount of stress you deal with isn’t as important as HOW you deal with it when it comes to affecting your cholesterol levels.
Prior studies have looked at how stress affects bad cholesterol levels and blood pressure negatively — total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and blood pressure can all go up under stress. Hostility, anger, and unhealthy coping strategies can all add to the stress and make things worse.