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It’s no secret that high blood pressure ups your risk for heart attack and stroke. But now scientists are saying it could also affect how you perceive emotions.

In a new study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, researchers found that individuals with higher than normal blood pressures not only had a tough time assigning emotions to text passages they read but also had problems recognizing angry, fearful, sad and happy faces when looking at photographs.

The phenomenon is called “emotional dampening,” a kind of reduced response to both positive and negative life events, explains lead author James McCubbin, professor of psychology at Clemson University.

In previous studies, individuals with emotional dampening showed reduced responses to both pain and stress.

According to McCubbin, missing emotional cues is like “... living in a world of email without smiley faces.”

“We put smiley faces in emails to show when we are just kidding,” he says. “Otherwise some people may misinterpret our humor and get angry.”

Indeed, folks who have a problem putting both verbal and non-verbal cues like expressions into the correct context, can have problems understanding subtleties in conversation, which can lead to poor job performance, communication problems and distrust of others.  Since emotional dampening also applies to positive emotions, these folks may not reap the “restorative benefits” of hobbies, vacations, or even the support of friends and family, McCubbin says.

For the study, the researchers asked 106 African-American men and women, average age 53, to evaluate emotional expressions in faces and sentences using a special gauge called the Perception of Affect Test.

Blood pressure and other cardiac-related readings were measured continuously during the test.

After controlling for medication use, body mass index and mental state, folks with high blood pressure readings scored the lowest when it came to their ability to recognize emotions.

The scientists suspect that higher blood pressure and emotional dampening may have something to do with subtle changes in brain function.

Medications to reduce blood pressure may help people get their emotion-reading meters back on track, says McCubbin, but don’t expect it to happen overnight.  He and his colleagues are now looking at how emotional dampening may influence risk-taking behaviors.

“We believe that people with emotional dampening problems have a harder time appraising threats,” says McCubbin, which could cause people not to follow a doctor’s advice about diet and exercise -- two good ways to help lower blood pressure.

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By Karen Blum

Nervous about an upcoming medical procedure? Try singing your troubles away.

Singing comforting songs helped significantly lower the blood pressure of a 76-year-old woman awaiting knee replacement surgery in the Dominican Republic, Harvard researchers report. The woman, who had a 15-year history of osteoarthritis in both knees, had been accepted into Operation Walk Boston, a philanthropic program providing total joint replacement to Dominican patients. She was admitted to Hospital General de la Plaza in Santo Domingo for total replacement of both knee joints last March.

The patient’s blood pressure on admission was 160/90 mmHg, controlled by her usual medication regimen. But two days later, on the morning of surgery, her blood pressure skyrocketed to 240/120 mmHg while she waited in the preoperative holding area. The anesthesiology team sent her back to the floor for additional blood pressure management and postponed her surgery until the following morning. Though doctors started her immediately on additional doses of anti-hypertensive medicines, her systolic pressure stayed at 200 mmHg.

With a tense atmosphere in the patient’s room and time running out before the outreach team would leave the country, the worried patient asked if she could sing.

“Softly at first, and then with increasing volume and passion, the patient sang six religious songs invoking Jesus, God and her Savior to protect the innocent and ill, bring peace, spread truth and heal souls,” the authors wrote in the April issue of Arthritis Care & Research. The patient was a member of the Seventh-Day Adventist church and sang while attending services several times a week.

After two songs, the team found her blood pressure had dropped to 180/90 mmHg. A few songs later, her systolic pressure lowered further. The lower pressures persisted throughout 20 minutes of singing and for several hours after.

“When she started singing, I noticed immediately that she looked a lot calmer – her facial expressions and body language (relaxed), which was reflected in the blood pressure measurements,” says study author Nina Niu, a second-year medical student who was part of the woman’s treatment team.

That night, doctors gave her medical orders to sing as necessary, which she did at various times throughout the night. The next morning she was cleared for surgery and underwent a successful operation with no complications or difficulty with postoperative blood pressure management.

It’s not the first look at music’s impact on health, the authors note. At least nine other studies demonstrated the positive health effects of music therapy on preoperative anxiety and blood pressure management, one of which found that listening to music was as effective as the prescription drug benzodiazepine for reducing blood pressure before surgery.

Crooning may not work for everyone, but it’s worth a try, Niu says: “It’s safe, cost-free and toxicity-free, so it’s a pretty ideal intervention.”

Does a certain song always calm you down? Tell us about it.

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