Managing Stress and Blood Pressure

Managing stress, when combined with a program of exercise and dietary change, may be helpful in treating stage-one hypertension without medication, according to results of a recent study.

Principal investigator Dr. Patricia Liehr presented the findings at the annual Southern Nursing Research Society meeting earlier this month.

Dr. Liehr, an associate professor in the Department of Nursing Systems and Technology of The University of Texas School of Nursing at Houston, says the 24 subjects were divided into two groups of 12. All 24 subjects received exercise at the Memorial-Hermann Wellness Center and dietary counseling from registered and licensed dietitian Sharon Smalling, who works at the center. Twelve of the 24 subjects learned about managing stress and added this activity to the exercise and dietary activities. They tested their newly learned stress management skills over an eight-week period. Each was seen four times by Dr. Liehr and her co-investigator Dr. Robert Vogler, also of the nursing school.

The group that learned to manage stress had significantly lower systolic blood pressure, heart rate and total cholesterol over time compared to the group that had only the exercise and dietary activity. There were no changes in the subjects' diastolic blood pressure or in their perceived stress levels.

The fact that the affected subjects didn't report feelings of lowered stress levels deserves further study, says Dr. Liehr. But the lowering of blood pressure and cholesterol levels through the addition of managing stress "highlights the power of the advanced nursing component in helping patients deal with the meaning of living with their illness every day."

This grant was funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research and The University of Texas Clinical Research Center at Houston. Other investigators on the study were Drs. Janet C. Meininger, Lorraine Frazier, Wenyaw Chan, Carlos Herrera, and Francisco Fuentes.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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