The Effects of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Stress Management Education on Arterial Stiffness, Trait Anxiety, and Sympathetic Regulation

Abstract

Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) has been shown to reduce blood pressure and anxiety in several studies, but the effects of MBSR on arterial stiffness and muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) have not been studied. We hypothesized that MBSR would lower arterial stiffness and MSNA. The present study randomized 22 adults (17 male; 5 female; age 25±1 years; BMI 26±1 kg/m2) with elevated blood pressure (i.e., ≥120/80 mmHg) into 8 weeks of MBSR or stress management education (SME). We examined resting blood pressure, heart rate, trait anxiety, arterial stiffness, and MSNA within 10 days before and after each of the 8-week interventions. Ten participants were randomized into the MBSR group, and 12 into the SME group. Resting blood pressure and heart rate were recorded as the average of three readings from an automated cuff in the seated position. Arterial stiffness was estimated as the average of two carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV) recordings in the supine position, and MSNA was recorded as burst frequency via direct post-ganglionic recordings from the peroneal nerve in a subset of participants. Mean arterial blood pressure was unchanged from pre- to post in either group, but heart rate was reduced from pre- to post in the MBSR participants (77±4 vs. 69±3 beats/min; p=0.01). There was a significant time-effect for trait anxiety, with raw scores reduced from pre- to post (38±3 vs. 34±2 a.u.; p=0.02). cfPWV was unchanged from pre to post (5.6±0.2 vs. 5.4±0.2 m/s; p=0.25), and MSNA was also unchanged (time-effect p=0.51) by MBSR (14±2 vs. 12±3 bursts/min; n=5) or SME (16±1 vs. 15±2 bursts/min; n=5). Results of the present study confirm that MBSR can have beneficial effects such as reducing HR and trait anxiety. Our results suggest that MBSR and SME do not change arterial stiffness or resting MSNA, but this may deserve further investigation in other at-risk populations. NIH (1R15HL140596-01) This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.