By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“For people with cardiovascular disease, meditation provides a technique for reducing stress and focusing on things they can do to be healthier. Meditation is a way of allowing you to come to balance in your life. It can also help you to sleep better, which is a very important restorative part of physical health.” – Richard Stein
Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer, claiming more lives than all forms of cancer combined. “Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women. About 610,000 people die of heart disease in the United States every year–that’s 1 in every 4 deaths. Every year about 735,000 Americans have a heart attack.” (Centers for Disease Control). A myriad of treatments has been developed for heart disease including a variety of surgical procedures and medications. In addition, lifestyle changes have proved to be effective including quitting smoking, weight reduction, improved diet, physical activity, and reducing stresses. Stress reduction is a key lifestyle change in treating heart conditions as stress can lead to increased physiological arousal including increased blood pressure that can exacerbate the patient’s condition
Contemplative practices, such as meditation, tai chi, and yoga, have also been shown to be helpful for heart health. In addition, mindfulness practices have also been shown to be helpful for producing the kinds of other lifestyle changes needed such as smoking cessation and weight reduction. They are particularly helpful for stress reduction, decreasing the psychological and physiological responses to stress. So, it would make sense to investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness practices in the treatment of cardiac patients.
In today’s Research News article “The effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on cardiac patients’ blood pressure, perceived stress, and anger: a single-blind randomized controlled trial.” See:
or see summary below. Momeni and colleagues recruited cardiac patients who were also hypertensive and randomly assigned them to either receive an 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program or to a wait list control condition. The MBSR program included mindful body scan, sitting meditation, walking meditation, and yoga. All of the patients were also receiving antihypertensive medications. They were measured both before and after treatment for blood pressure, perceived stress, and state and trait anxiety.
They found that MBSR training resulted in a significant decrease (12%) in systolic blood pressure, but not diastolic blood pressure, a 45% decrease in perceived stress, a 47% decrease in state anxiety, and a 31% decrease in trait anxiety. Thus, MBSR training was highly effective in reducing blood pressure, stress, and anxiety levels in cardiac patients. The magnitude of the effects large and clinically significant. Hence, they found that MBSR training was a safe and effective treatment for improving the physical and psychological conditions of cardiac patients. This is very important as it may be life saving.
So, chill cardiac patients with mindfulness.
“People who are more mindful tend to have more awareness of where their mind and bodies are at. By increasing our awareness, we might become more aware of the impact of what we are doing on ourselves.” – Eric Loucks
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Momeni J, Omidi A, Raygan F, Akbari H. The effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction on cardiac patients’ blood pressure, perceived stress, and anger: a single-blind randomized controlled trial. J Am Soc Hypertens. 2016 Aug 4. pii: S1933-1711(16)30448-X. doi: 10.1016/j.jash.2016.07.007.
Abstract
This study aimed at assessing the effects of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) on cardiac patients’ blood pressure (BP), perceived stress, and anger. In total, 60 cardiac patients were recruited between April and June 2015 from a specialized private cardiac clinic located in Kashan, Iran. Patients were allocated to the intervention and control groups. Patients in the experimental group received MBSR in eight 2.5-hour sessions, while patients in the control group received no psychological therapy. The main outcomes were BP, perceived stress, and anger. Analysis of covariance revealed a significant difference between the study groups regarding the posttest values of systolic BP, perceived stress, and anger (P < .001). However, the study groups did not differ significantly in terms of diastolic BP (P = .061; P = .17). This study reveals that MBSR is effective in reducing cardiac patients’ systolic BP, perceived stress, and anger.