High Blood Pressure May Lead To Missed Emotional Cues: Study

High blood pressure could be hindering your ability to read emotional cues, according to a new Clemson University study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.

"We've known for quite a while that people with hypertension have reduced pain sensitivity," says James A. McCubbin, a psychology professor at Clemson and one of the authors on the study. It turns out that it isn't just hypertensive patients and it isn't just a limited response to pain, but there may be a link between blood pressure and emotional response as well.

"A friend of mine in the Netherlands did a study where they asked hypertensive patients how much stress they were under and they didn't report being under much stress, but if you asked their spouse, the spouse would say that their husband or wife was under a lot of stress," McCubbin says.

Those findings formed the basis of his research, which asked a group of African-American men and women, sampled from the Healthy Aging in Nationally Diverse Longitudinal Samples pilot study, to respond to photos expressing joy, sadness, anger and fear in people's faces and text messages. The study participants showed a reduced ability to recognize the emotions shown to them, a response McCubbin calls "emotional dampening."

Emotional dampening, he says, may cause people to respond inappropriately to anger or other emotions in others and could even lead to risky behavior if people are unable to fully appraise threats in the environment.

"For example, if your work supervisor is angry, you may mistakenly believe that he or she is just kidding," McCubbin said, in a release from Clemson University. "This can lead to miscommunication, poor job performance and increased psychosocial distress."

The relationship between high blood pressure and emotions may have something to do with changes in the central nervous system, McCubbin says, specifically changes in brain function that parallel the rise in blood pressure that can happen with age. It could also, in turn, be a risk factor for the development of hypertension itself.

According to the American Heart Association, more than 40 percent of non-Hispanic blacks have high blood pressure and not only is it more severe in blacks than whites, but it also develops earlier in life.

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Comments

[mountainlora]

09:15 PM on 11/13/2011

I wonder if the opposite is true. I wonder if people with low blood pressure are hyper-sensitive to others' emotions. Other people might perceive them as "defensive", when they are actually hyper attuned to emotions coming from someone else, that the person isn't even ready to admit they feel.

[James De La Cruz]

09:11 PM on 11/08/2011

African American high blood pressure is caused by long-term social abuse.

[Staxx]

06:48 PM on 11/08/2011

So then why does Blacks smile more, and are more emotional and animated with each other than Whites?

[Suemoni]

02:47 PM on 11/08/2011

I hope that this article will not be used as another hook to stigmatize people of color. I noticed that this study features it's study and findings on how the emotions of people of color react differently or indifferently when they are suffering from hypertension. I wont say whether or not I believe what this artricle is saying I'll just say it's an intersting article. But I truly hope that it will not be drawn out of context as a means to stigmatize and or stereo-type people of color who have hypertension.

[michelleobamaok]

01:36 PM on 11/08/2011

I THINK HERB CAIN has hypertension. He's INSENSITIVE to everyone's circumstances or needs BUT HIS OWN. I still say he probably slaps his wife around or verbally abuses her ON THE REGULAR.

[Foday]

07:21 AM on 11/09/2011

Is that why you are using the First Lady's name to post under? You must be insensitive to make such comments