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FREQUENT WORRYING RELATED TO ELEVATED HEART RATE | |
| Contact: Suzanne Pieper Phone: +3171 5273695 Email: Pieper@fsw.leidenuniv.nl Embargoed until: March 3, 2004 |
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"…when you worry, your face will frown" (from the song by Bobby McFerrin, 1988) is not the only trouble you'll have when you tend to worry a lot. Worrying a lot also leads to elevated heart rate during sleep, which might increase your risk for cardiovascular disease. This is the finding of a study on the effects of psychological factors on heart activity conducted by Suzanne Pieper and Jos Brosschot, researchers of Leiden University in the Netherlands, together with Julian Thayer, from the National Institute on Aging, Baltimore, MD. Results of the study were presented at the American Psychosomatic Society Annual Meeting, held at March 3 - 6 in Orlando, FL. The study was designed to assess the effect of worry, depression, anxiety and hostility on cardiovascular activity during waking and sleeping. 52 High-school teachers participated in the study; they filled out various standardized questionnaires to establish their level of worry, depression, anxiety and hostility and they wore equipment that measured their heart rate continuously for four days and nights. The results suggest that being a frequent worrier can lead to heart activity during periods when the body should get rest and recover. This process might be interfered by worrying and lack of complete recovery over and over again might in the end lead to heart disease. Of additional interest is that depression or anxiety, which are frequently found to be related to cardiovascular disease, did not lead to elevated cardiac activity during sleep. However, further analysis showed that depressed men, but not depressed women, showed higher activation of their autonomous nervous system (i.e. decreased heart rate variability). This has been found by other researchers before, and seems to point to interesting biological differences between males and females regarding depression. To conclude with another line from the very truthful song text of Bobby McFerrin: "In your life expect some trouble, but when you worry, you make it double". Worrying might lead to more than you originally bargained for. | |
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Psychosomatic Medicine is the official peer-reviewed journal of the American Psychosomatic Society, published bimonthly. For information about the journal, contact Vicki White, Managing Editor for Manuscript Production,
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