A study published at American University found that after people with high blood pressure received daily smartphone messages aimed at cultivating spirituality for 12 weeks, their systolic blood pressure decreased by an average of 7 mmHg, an indicator of vascular health. He said he experienced improvements in other markers. Annual Academic Session in Cardiology.
Nearly half of adults in the United States have high blood pressure, or hypertension, but this health condition often has no symptoms. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is estimated that despite available medications and proven lifestyle interventions, approximately 75% of people with hypertension do not have their blood pressure adequately controlled.
Previous research has linked certain spirituality-based interventions, such as meditation and positive social interactions, to cardiovascular health benefits, but most of the research on this topic has been observational. However, it was difficult to confirm the benefits. In this study, researchers found that spirituality, defined as the moral and personal values that guide our lives and relationships with others, can help control blood pressure and improve heart health. I investigated whether or not.
“When your blood pressure drops this much, you’re less likely to have a heart attack, kidney disease, stroke, or disability later in life, and you may live longer,” says hypertensive cardiologist Maria Emilia Teixeira. the doctor said. She is a unit of the Faculty of Medicine of the Federal University of Goiás, Brazil, and the first author of the study. “This reduction in d7-mmHg is greater than seen with other non-pharmacological interventions and may even exceed that of some drugs.”
Religion is one way people achieve spirituality, but researchers believe that interventions that focus on fostering optimism, gratitude, and forgiveness, without being tied to any particular religious tradition, can improve health. I tried to find out if it could affect the. They enrolled 100 patients being treated for high blood pressure at a Brazilian medical center and randomly assigned half to receive a spiritual intervention and the other half to receive no intervention.
In the spirituality intervention, participants receive short messages via WhatsApp that encourage them to stop and reflect, focus on specific values or life goals, or complete short tasks such as writing a message of gratitude. I received a message every day with a video. Although the researchers were able to track which participants opened the messages and completed the requested tasks, they could not measure participants’ level of engagement with the messages.
At baseline and after 12 weeks, all participants completed a medical examination that included assessment of lifestyle and medication use, blood pressure, and flow-mediated dilation, a noninvasive measure of vascular health. Participants also self-recorded their blood pressure at home over a 5-day period at the beginning and end of the study. Individuals who changed medications during the course of the study were excluded from the analysis.
At the end of 12 weeks, participants who received the spirituality intervention had significantly lower blood pressure compared to both their own baseline blood pressure and the control group’s final blood pressure reading. Dilation through blood flow was also significantly improved, increasing by 4.5% in patients who received the intervention. Participants in the control group experienced a significant worsening of blood flow-mediated dilation, which was reduced by 3% in this group.
The researchers said the intervention was easy to develop and test and could be scaled up to a wide range of populations. However, it should be noted that this approach requires access to an internet-connected device, which may be limited in some populations. They also said the approach could be extended to explore other factors such as compassion and life satisfaction.
“This is absolutely affordable and easy to test and deploy in different countries,” Teixeira said.
The study’s main limitation was the relatively small sample size, and the researchers said larger studies are needed to confirm the observed benefits.
