Maybe you’ve heard that meditation can help manage stress, but did you know it can actually improve your blood pressure?
High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is a leading contributor to heart attack and stroke. In the United States alone, nearly half of adults have high blood pressure — that’s nearly 120 million people.
Managing hypertension is multifactorial and may include modifications to diet and lifestyle, and taking medication. Eating healthy and getting plenty of exercise are still two of the most effective things you can do to improve your blood pressure. However, other activities can also lower stress and have a positive impact on your blood pressure.
Meditation has historically and anecdotally been associated with calmness and stress reduction. However, researchers have struggled to quantify the effects of meditation through traditional scientific research. There is now mounting evidence of the physiological effects of meditation on the body, including blood pressure.
New research on meditation and blood pressure
A study published in May 2023 in the prestigious Journal of the American Heart Association, found that a mindfulness meditation training intervention was effective at improving blood pressure. Compared to a control group, individuals who did mindfulness meditation training lowered their systolic blood pressure by nearly 6 points after 6 months compared to baseline readings. The control group also improved, but less so: lowering their reading by 4.5 points.
“This study demonstrated a clinically significant reduction in systolic blood pressure comparable to many behavioral interventions for blood pressure. Given the program uses mindfulness training integrated with modifiable determinants of blood pressure, it may offer an appealing approach to help control blood pressure of the 46% of Americans with hypertension, of which >75% is uncontrolled,” wrote the study authors.
The research highlights how meditation’s stress-reducing effects make it a viable complementary therapy for high blood pressure. It also underscores the benefits of combining meditation with other lifestyle changes, such as a heart-healthy diet and regular exercise. Meditation’s impact is likely more than physical; its mental health benefits—reducing anxiety and promoting emotional well-being—may lead to long-term improvements in cardiovascular health.
A review of the evidence
In a 2012 review of the evidence on meditation and high blood pressure published in the International Journal of Hypertension, researchers concluded that meditation is a potentially promising treatment. The researchers reviewed 286 randomized controlled trials that employed different forms of meditation practice.
“Meditation is an intervention for hypertension and prehypertension that is perhaps best characterized as being in its adolescence. There is clearly considerable promise, with a variety of studies demonstrating efficacy in the short-term reduction of BP similar to that achieved with single-agent drug therapy,“ wrote the authors.
Despite this assertion, there were limitations as well. They note that many existing studies may have the potential for bias. Also, their review included many different forms of meditation, though not all appear to have the same effect on blood pressure.
Nonetheless, the simplicity of meditation practice and the ease with which it can be applied appears promising:
“Meditation techniques, if they can be delivered efficiently and effectively, may prove to be valuable tools to treat the growing epidemic of hypertension, particularly if they eliminate the inconveniences of laboratory monitoring or prescription refills,” they wrote.
More from Still Sitting: “Meditation for Sleep” and “The Health Benefits of Meditation“.
A note on our research and sources
Still Sitting is committed to writing and researching informative, engrossing, and accurate articles for our blog. We know there are many places to find information online. So, we work hard to ensure that we are a trusted source for all of our readers. Our blog is intended to help you learn about our products and the cultural and historical subjects that we hold dear. As part of this commitment, we include the sources we used to write our posts:
Journal of the American Heart Association
CDC Statistics on Hypertension
American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2022
Harvard: Meditation to Lower Blood Pressure
International Journal of Hypertension