Home Relaxation Techniques for Essential Hypertension

A 10-week relaxation treatment focused on home practice and self-monitoring of blood pressure for the purpose of lowering blood pressure in patients with essential hypertension. Comparisons were made among relaxation (n = 13), relaxation in combination with electromyographic biofeedback (n = 14), and a control condition in which patients simply monitored their blood pressure (n = 14). These three groups of patients, all of which received antihypertensive medication, were compared with a fourth group that practiced relaxation without drug therapy (n = 17). Relaxation and relaxation/biofeedback were equally effective in reducing blood pressure recorded at home in the morning and evening and produced greater decreases than in the control group. Relaxation without drugs, although somewhat more effective than self-monitoring, did not reduce blood pressure as much as the two conditions in which medication was combined with relaxation. Although reductions over the course of treatment were noted in blood pressure recorded in the laboratory, the four treatment conditions did not differ significantly from one another

Anesthesia · Biofeedback · Blood pressure · Essential hypertension · Evening · Morning · Pharmacotherapy · Physical therapy · Relaxation (psychology) · Relaxation Therapy · Blood Pressure and Hypertension Studies · Cardiovascular and exercise physiology · Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control · Internal Medicine · Medicine

• An Historical and Critical Review of the Articles on Blood Pressure Published in Psychosomatic Medicine Between 1939 and 1997

  Bernard T Engel•Psychosomatic Medicine•1998

  Incluir item

• Behavioral Treatment of High Blood Pressure I I. Acute and Sustained Effects of Relaxation and Systolic Blood Pressure Biofeedback

  Michael S Glasgow, Kenneth R Gaarder et al.•Psychosomatic Medicine•1982

  Incluir item

• Expectation and the Blood-Pressure-Lowering Effects of Relaxation

  W Stewart Agras, STEWART W AGRAS et al.•Psychosomatic Medicine•1982

  Incluir item

• Behavioral Versus Pharmacological Treatments for Essential Hypertension—A Needed Comparison

  Lester Luborsky, Paul Crits-Christoph et al.•Psychosomatic Medicine•1982

  Incluir item