When your doctor checks your blood pressure, it’s more than just a number.
High blood pressure is known to harm your heart, but it may also affect how you feel and behave emotionally. Scientists are now finding a strong link between blood pressure and certain emotional traits.
To understand this better, let’s look at what blood pressure is. Blood pressure is the force of blood pushing against the walls of your arteries. It has two parts: systolic (the top number), which is the pressure when your heart beats, and diastolic (the bottom number), which is the pressure when your heart is resting between beats.
Recent research shows that the diastolic number might play an important role in our emotions. One area scientists are looking at is something called “neuroticism.”
This is a personality trait where people often feel worried, sad, or easily upset. People who score high in neuroticism often find it harder to cope with stress and may feel negative emotions more often than others.
In this new study, researchers used a method called Mendelian randomization. This method helps scientists figure out if one thing (like blood pressure) directly affects another thing (like emotions). It uses information from people’s genes to look for connections.
Since our genes influence our blood pressure, scientists looked at genetic data from thousands of people. They focused on small genetic differences that are known to affect blood pressure. When they studied this data, they found something very interesting: people with higher diastolic blood pressure also had higher levels of neuroticism.
However, they didn’t find a strong link between blood pressure and general anxiety or depression, which was surprising. This means the way blood pressure affects our emotions might be more specific and complicated than we thought.
This is important because people who are high in neuroticism tend to feel stressed more often. This constant stress can lead to higher blood pressure, creating a cycle that can hurt both your heart and your mental health.
The good news is that managing blood pressure might help people feel better emotionally. If doctors and patients work together to keep blood pressure in a healthy range, it could improve not just heart health but also emotional well-being. You might feel less worried, less sad, and more in control.
This study is a reminder that our body and mind are connected. Taking care of your physical health—like eating well, staying active, and managing stress—can also help your mental health. Looking after your heart might also help you feel calmer and more positive.
The research was led by Cai L and his team and published in the journal General Psychiatry. It gives us a new way to think about how our heart and our mind work together.
If you care about high blood pressure, please read studies about unhealthy habits that may increase high blood pressure risk, and drinking green tea could help lower blood pressure.
For more information about high blood pressure, please see recent studies about what to eat or to avoid for high blood pressure, and 12 foods that lower blood pressure.
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