Does compassion protect against raised blood pressure and hypertension?

What is it about?

In the current study, we examined (1) whether compassion is associated with the course of systolic or diastolic blood pressure or the onset of hypertension and (2) whether these associations are modified by familial risk for hypertension (i.e. one or two parents diagnosed with hypertension by doctor). The sample included approximately 1100-1300 Finnish adults who were followed over 15 years. We found that high compassion predicted lower levels of diastolic and systolic blood pressure. Moreover, high compassion was found to protect against hypertension among individuals with no familial risk for hypertension (i.e. with a lower inherited risk for hypertension).

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Why is it important?

The worldwide prevalence of hypertension is more than 30%. The treatment of hypertension, however, is challenging because anti-hypertensive medications are not effective in a large portion of hypertensive patients and because there are commonly adverse side effects related to use of anti-hypertensive medications. Further, it has been noted that the current relaxation or stress-reduction techniques or cognitive-behavioral interventions may not be effective for hypertension. Hence, novel treatments for raised blood pressure are needed. Our findings strongly suggest that high compassion could be a protective factor against raised blood pressure. Future studies could investigate whether compassion-practicing interventions could be effective when aiming to prevent and treat hypertension.