Good emotion linked to low blood pressure
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-10-19 09:17 NEW YORK - Having a positive outlook makes life
more enjoyable, and it may also lower blood pressure in older adults.
Among more than 2,500 people aged 65 or older, the higher a person scored on
a questionnaire measuring positive emotions, the lower was his or her blood
pressure.
"Our thoughts and emotions do affect our physical processes," Dr. Glenn V.
Ostir of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, the study's lead
author, told Reuters Health. "The nice thing is that we have some control over
that."
There is evidence that positive emotions can help keep a person's chemical
and neural responses in balance, and help people handle stress better, Ostir and
his team note in the latest issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.
To investigate whether happiness might be related to blood pressure as well,
they surveyed 2,654 Mexican-Americans. About half were men and half were women,
and the study participants were an average of 72.5 years old. All of the
subjects completed a questionnaire that ranked their degree of positive emotions
on a scale of 0 to 12.
The higher a person scored on the test, the lower their blood pressure was,
the researchers found. The effect was strongest among people who weren't taking
drugs to lower their blood pressure, but it was still significant for men and
women who were taking antihypertension medications.
The findings suggest that targeting people's emotional well-being could be an
effective way to help control their blood pressure, Ostir and his team suggest.
In an interview, Ostir emphasized the importance of knowing one's blood
pressure, and also suggested that people try to gain perspective when they're
feeling unhappy. When "we're worried or anxious or stressed out over things,
maybe we should take a step back and be aware of why we're feeling that way," he
said.
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