Stuart Long Advises:
The holiday season, while joyous, can also amplify stress in ways that elevate cardiovascular risk. Emotional stressors can contribute not only to anxiety but also to serious heart health risks, as hormones like cortisol and adrenaline increase blood pressure, heart rate, and inflammation. This isn’t just theory; cardiac fatalities are almost 5% higher during the holiday season, with heart attack rates spiking by 37% on December 24. December 25 has the highest cardiac death rate in the U.S., followed closely by December 26 and January 1.
With these elevated seasonal risks, proactive cardiac monitoring becomes paramount to positive outcomes, especially for patients at higher risk for heart conditions. AI-enabled remote patient monitoring (RPM) has emerged as a solution, providing continuous, near real-time insights that support timely interventions to reduce the risk of stress-induced heart attacks and strokes. By converting fluctuating stress levels into actionable cardiac data, AI-enabled RPM offers improved cardiac outcomes—not only during the holidays but throughout the year.
In this article, we’ll explore the critical connection between stress and heart health, and discuss how AI-powered remote cardiac monitoring can help high-risk individuals avoid preventable cardiac events, especially during the holiday season.
The Connection Between Stress, Anxiety, and Heart Health
Before we examine AI-enabled virtual cardiac telemetry, let’s take a closer look at the physiological impact of stress. Stress affects the body in various ways, and its impact on the cardiovascular system is particularly significant. When a person experiences stress, including the holiday kind, the body’s “fight or flight” response is activated, leading to the release of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones cause blood vessels to constrict, increase heart rate, and elevate blood pressure, all of which can strain the heart.
While these responses are beneficial in short bursts—helping people react quickly to threats—chronic activation due to ongoing stress can be harmful. Prolonged, chronic stress leads to inflammation, which plays a key role in the development of cardiovascular diseases. Studies show that people reporting high stress and depression were 2.5 times more likely to have a heart attack than those with low stress or no depression history.
The combination of holiday-related stressors like financial strain, disrupted routines, social obligations, and even changes in diet and alcohol consumption can elevate stress levels, and, by extension, cardiovascular risks—especially for individuals already at heightened risk of heart conditions.
In addition to seasonal stress, the holidays introduce another dynamic that contributes to increased cardiac events. People often delay seeking medical attention, assuming that their symptoms are due to stress, exhaustion, or digestion. This can lead to underreporting of symptoms and missed opportunities for early intervention. For example, a person experiencing chest pain during a holiday dinner might dismiss it as heartburn from a heavy meal, only to face a serious cardiac event soon after. Even if a patient is concerned about their symptoms, they may be inclined to delay treatment until after the holiday rush has subsided. When it comes to cardiac conditions, however, even days can make the difference between a positive outcome and a fatality.
Turning Seasonal Stress into Actionable Cardiac Insights with AI-Enabled Virtual Telemetry
AI-powered RPM is reshaping cardiac care by making proactive management accessible for high-risk patients, especially in times of heightened stress. Unlike low-risk patients, who may benefit from consumer wearables and simple lifestyle changes, high-risk individuals gain an additional layer of protection through continuous monitoring and near real-time analysis, eliminating the need for frequent in-office visits.
Historically, cardiovascular monitoring was limited to episodic check-ups and patient-reported symptoms, which left critical gaps in care. Without continuous monitoring, patients could go years without intervention, allowing disease progression to advance quietly. Traditional, wired devices collected data only intermittently, meaning early warning signs could be missed, and interventions were often reactive, addressing issues only after a heart event had occurred.
Today, AI-driven RPM offers a significant improvement by continuously collecting data and analyzing it in near real-time, shifting cardiac care from reactive to proactive. Streamlined, wireless devices now enable high-risk patients to be monitored as part of their daily lives—whether they’re recovering post-surgery, managing a chronic condition, or facing seasonal stress. AI also analyzes subtle, “non-event” data—patterns that may not cause immediate symptoms but indicate developing issues. This nuanced insight allows both patients and providers to identify risks early and take preventative action, rather than waiting for symptoms to escalate.
Reflecting the increased reliance on AI-enabled RPM and other health technology, the wearable device market reached $33.85 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 25.66% from 2024 to 2030, highlighting the rising demand for continuous, proactive health management solutions.
Key Benefits of AI-Powered Remote Monitoring for High-Stress During the Holiday Season
AI-powered remote monitoring systems offer a range of benefits, particularly for high-risk cardiovascular patients who may be more susceptible to stress-induced cardiac events around the holidays. Let’s explore some of the reasons AI-enabled wearable technology is especially beneficial during the festive season:
- Continuous, non-intrusive monitoring throughout the season
One of the key advantages of AI-powered remote cardiac telemetry is that these devices provide round-the-clock monitoring without requiring users to manually check their vitals or schedule regular doctor visits. They offer a non-intrusive way of keeping track of health parameters, ensuring that any abnormal readings are immediately flagged, even during holiday travel, shopping, or gatherings.
This constant vigilance is particularly beneficial for high-risk patients, as it allows for early detection and intervention during the most stressful time of the year. It also improves the quality of patients’ long-term health outside the season; one study found a 50% reduction in 30-day readmissions for patients with congestive heart failure using an AI-powered remote monitoring program.
- More personalized alerts and interventions for stress management
AI-powered remote cardiac monitoring solutions can deliver personalized health insights based on the patient’s historical data, which is particularly useful when stress levels are higher than usual. This can provide peace of mind, and, in turn, actually reduce stress as a result.
When monitoring solutions detect deviations from a patient’s norm, they can send reminders to practice relaxation techniques, stay hydrated, or take medication. AI-enabled remote cardiac monitoring systems offer the added benefit of automated alerts to the provider, notifying clinicians if patients are experiencing anomalies or indicators of a potential event. AI-enabled devices are also accurate when it comes to detection. In fact, the average F1 score for AI algorithms exceeded that of average cardiologists in arrhythmia detection.
- Connecting patients and providers despite the distance
AI-powered RPM enables providers to stay informed about patients’ health without relying solely on in-person visits. If a device identifies a concerning pattern, it can notify the provider, allowing for timely adjustments to the treatment plan. This connectivity is especially valuable during the holidays when patients may be less likely to prioritize medical check-ups, and providers are more likely to take well-deserved vacation time themselves.
Equipped with a high-level of connectivity and flexibility, AI-enabled remote monitoring devices also show long-term improvements in patient adherence during any season, as nearly 89% of patients reported feeling more satisfied with their care when using RPM tools.
Non-intrusive, highly personalized, and continuously connected, virtual cardiac telemetry solutions are enabling a bright and proactive future for cardiology. The future of cardiology is one in which cardiac health is not treated as an isolated clinical function, but instead a fully integrated part of a patient’s lifestyle—complete with the holiday frenzy, the festive eating, and the high-stress family gatherings.
The Future of AI in Cardiovascular Care: For the Holidays and Beyond
The holiday season may bring a spike in stress levels, but it doesn’t have to mean a spike in cardiac events. By redefining the limits of traditional cardiovascular care, AI-powered virtual cardiac telemetry enables healthcare providers and patients to predict and even prevent stress-induced cardiac events, offering peace of mind during stressful seasons. Instead of treating conditions after a major event, the future of cardiology will embrace proactive prevention through the power of detection—by monitoring the nuanced fluctuations of a patient’s heart at all times, especially during periods of intense stress.
As AI technology continues to advance, we will move ever-closer to a world in which stress no longer dictates our cardiac outcomes, and every heartbeat is protected, even during the most stressful times of the year.
Author Bio
Stuart Long has been the CEO of InfoBionic.Ai since March 2017. He underscores the company’s commitment to widespread market adoption of its transformative wireless remote patient monitoring platform for chronic disease management. With more than 25 years of experience in the medical device market, Stuart brings expertise in achieving rapid commercial growth. Learn more about remote cardiac monitoring at www.infobionic.ai.