Cardiovascular Reactivity to and Recovery from Stressful Tasks Following a Mindfulness Analog in College Students with a Family History of Hypertension

Effect of a single session of yoga and meditation on stress reactivity: A systematic review

This systematic review synthesises the evidence for the effectiveness of a single session of yoga or its components including meditation and breathing techniques in reducing acute stress reactivity in healthy adults. Following the PRISMA guidelines, we searched Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane, CINAHL, and PsycINFO on 30th July 2023 for randomised controlled or crossover trials of yoga components and reporting physiological and/or psychological outcome measure(s) related to stress reactivity. Risk of bias (ROB) was assessed using the Cochrane ROB 2 tool. Data were synthesised narratively. Twenty-one out of 28 eligible studies (n = 2574) relating to 31 interventions (meditation [n = 22], breathing [n = 4] and yoga [n = 5]) reported outcomes in favour of the intervention. Stress reactivity was reported to be reduced by 71% of studies measuring physiological outcomes and 65% of studies measuring psychological outcomes. These studies show that a single session of yoga components is effective in reducing acute stress reactivity in adults and could be recommended for stress management. Future studies with larger populations and a more equal representation of genders and age groups are warranted.

Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Physical and Psychological Wellbeing in Cardiovascular Diseases: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

BACKGROUND

Recently, there has been an increased interest in the efficacy of mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) for people with cardiovascular diseases (CVD), although the exact beneficial effects remain unclear.

METHODS

This review aims to establish the role of MBI in the management of wellbeing for patients with CVD. Seventeen articles have been included in this systematic synthesis of the literature and eleven in the meta-analysis.

RESULTS

Considering physical (i.e., heart rate, blood pressure) and psychological outcomes (i.e., depression, anxiety, stress, styles of coping), the vast majority of studies confirmed that MBI has a positive influence on coping with psychological risk factors, also improving physiological fitness. Random-effects meta-analysis models suggested a moderate-to-large effect size in reducing anxiety, depression, stress, and systolic blood pressure.

CONCLUSIONS

Although a high heterogeneity was observed in the methodological approaches, scientific literature confirmed that MBI can now be translated into a first-line intervention tool for improving physical and psychological wellbeing in CVD patients.

Examining the Relationship between Mindfulness, Perceived Stress, and Blood Pressure in African-American College Students

College students are prone to stress, making them vulnerable to cardiovascular disease (CVD). Harmful health behaviors, such as tobacco or alcohol use, further predispose students to hypertension (HTN). African-Americans (AA) experience increased blood pressure reactivity, and weathering, due to race-related stressors. This interplay makes AA college students good targets for strategies to prevent stress and HTN disease risk. This project examined the relationship between mindfulness, perceived stress and blood pressure among a group of AA college students enrolled in an HBCU healthy heart course. Participants' systolic and diastolic blood pressure averaged 122 mmHg and 76 mmHg, respectively. The Spearman correlation revealed a negative strong relationship between mindfulness and perceived stress (r_s = -0.61, p = 0.004). The coefficient of determination indicated that 37% of the variance in mindfulness was explained by perceived stress. College health practitioners should consider integrating mindfulness into course activities and expanding its treatment modality.

Mindfulness mediates the physiological markers of stress: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Meditation is a popular form of stress management, argued to mediate stress reactivity. However, many studies in this field commonly fail to include an active control group. Given the frequency with which people are selecting meditation as a form of self-management, it is important to validate if the practice is effective in mediating stress-reactivity using well-controlled studies. Thus, we aimed to conduct a meta-analysis investigating the neurobiological effects of meditation, including focused attention, open monitoring and automatic self-transcending subtypes, compared to an active control, on markers of stress. In the current meta-analysis and systematic review, we included randomised controlled trials comparing meditation interventions compared to an active control on physiological markers of stress. Studied outcomes include cortisol, blood pressure, heart-rate, lipids and peripheral cytokine expression. Forty-five studies were included. All meditation subtypes reduced systolic blood pressure. Focused attention meditations also reduced cortisol and open monitoring meditations also reduced heart rate. When all meditation forms were analysed together, meditation reduced cortisol, C - reactive protein, blood pressure, heart rate, triglycerides and tumour necrosis factor-alpha. Overall, meditation practice leads to decreased physiological markers of stress in a range of populations.

Accumulated mental stress study using the meridians of traditional Chinese medicine with photoplethysmography

OBJECTIVES

To investigate accumulated mental stress according to the concept of the meridians of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). This stress was quantified by using pulse spectrum analysis of finger-tip photoplethysmography (PPG). Stress accumulation is one of the main causes of cardiovascular disease and depression in humans, resulting in chronic physiologic malfunctions; however, few studies have thoroughly assessed the quantitative evaluation of accumulative stress using the concept of TCM.

DESIGN

This study investigated accumulated mental stress from the perspective of TCM based on an 8-day experiment. The theory of organ resonance was integrated into the proposed PPG sensing instrument to capture the nine harmonics of TCM. Participants were given daily mental arithmetic tasks over 1 week to simulate stress accumulation, and trends in the proportion of the nine harmonics of TCM were extracted over several days and analyzed to identify the affective factors related to cumulative stress.

RESULTS

The experimental results showed that the kidney harmonic proportion (C2) and stomach harmonic proportion (C5) were significant only on the first few days because of a physiologic phenomenon of temporary stimulation. Most important, the trend of the liver harmonic proportion (C1) from days 3 to 8 dramatically increased and became gradually saturated because of the influence of accumulated mental stress.

CONCLUSIONS

The results strongly suggest that pulse spectrum analysis of the PPG signal provides physiologically and pathologically important information on accumulated mental stress and can be useful for TCM analysis.