If you think you are taking proper care of your heart but find yourself stressed about different things all the time, you could still be damaging your heart. When it comes to emotional stress, your heart could face something quite deadly.

A broken heart can literally break your heart. Nope, this is not a joke! For those who have not ever heard of Broken Heart Syndrome, it is also known as Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy and is a very real condition. This condition comes from severe emotional stress. That severe emotional stress could rage from a bad breakup to someone passing away and everything in-between. While most people recover from it without long-term damage, not everyone is so lucky.

Harvard.Edu describes it as follows:

Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a weakening of the left ventricle, the heart’s main pumping chamber, usually as the result of severe emotional or physical stress, such as a sudden illness, the loss of a loved one, a serious accident, or a natural disaster such as an earthquake. (For additional examples, see “Stressors associated with takotsubo cardiomyopathy.”) That’s why the condition is also called stress-induced cardiomyopathy, or broken-heart syndrome. The main symptoms are chest pain and shortness of breath.

This basically happens due to the surge in stress hormones and how your body reacts to them. It basically stuns the heart and triggers changes in the heart muscle cells or perhaps the blood vessels. Women are more vulnerable to this condition but it can also affect men. Because the symptoms of this are so close to those of a heart attack, lots of testing would need to be done.

When it comes to extreme stress talking things out with someone you trust might save you a lot of trouble and damage to your heart in the long-run. Because our hearts are the most hardworking muscles in our bodies we have to do what we can to ensure they are not going to quit being able to do their jobs. Considering almost 80 percent of those diagnosed with this condition had recently experienced a significant emotional experience, I think it’s safe to say we need to know how to cope.

At the moment there is no known medicine that will improve this condition or prevent it from coming back once it is gone, but in its early stages, heart attack treatment is common. According to BHF.Org.UK, about 15 percent of those who have this once will have another episode at some point in their lives. Knowing how to manage your stress is important. Don’t hesitate to get help if you need it. To learn more about this interesting condition feel free to check out the video below.