A single mindfulness-based meditation session can produce reductions in cardiovascular risk in hypertensive patients. - GreenMedInfo Summary

Background: Several non-drug treatment approaches for systemic arterial hypertension have been studied aimed at reducing the adverse effects of this clinical condition. In addition to exercise training, which already has many of its modalities consolidated in the scientific field, body and mind practices have gained strength and deserve attention in the science and treatment of hypertension. The literature shows that meditation practices have numerous health benefits, one of which is blood pressure (BP) control.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the acute effects of a single mindfulness-based meditation on BP in adults with hypertension.

Methods: Research was developed that evaluated the BP of 5 adult women with controlled hypertension. As a data collection instrument, we used 2 sessions of ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM): the first was a control session and the second a meditation session. Systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP) and mean blood pressure (MBP) were evaluated at the pre- and post-session in addition to heart rate (HR), with clinical and ambulatorial measurements, during the day, night, morning surge and a 24-hour period. Data analysis was performed using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for the ABPM data and two-way ANOVA to analyze blood pressure.

Results: The main results found were a statistically significant reduction in SBP in the morning and a tendency toward a significant decrease in MBP during the same period (P = .057). There were no significant changes in the other variables analyzed.

Conclusion: Therefore, we concluded that a single meditation session was effective only in reducing morning SBP.