| |
| | MODULATION
OF STRESS INDUCED BY ISOMETRIC HANDGRIP
TEST IN HYPERTENSIVE PATIENTS FOLLOWING YOGIC
RELAXATION TRAINING | |
Vijayalakshmi P.*, Madanmohan, Bhavanani A. B., Asmita Patil and Kumar Babu P.
Department of Physiology and
Staff & Students’ Health Center,
Jawaharlal Institute of Post-graduate Medical Education and Research, Pondicherry
– 605 006
| | Abstract:
13 essential hypertensive patients aged 41 to 60 years were
given yoga training for 60 min daily, Monday through Saturday, for
a
total duration of 4 weeks. Blood pressure and heart rate (HR) were
measured with non-invasive semi-automatic blood pressure monitor.
Measurements were recorded before the training and at weekly
intervals
during the 4 week training period. Results of our study show a
significant
(P<0.001) reduction in resting HR and rate-pressure-product (RPP)
after
2 weeks of yoga training. Systolic pressure (SP), diastolic
pressure (DP)
(P<0.001) and mean pressure (MP) (P<0.05) showed a
significant reduction
at 3 weeks of training period. After 4 weeks of training, there
was further
fall in SP, DP, pulse pressure (PP) (P<0.05), MP (P<0.001),
HR and RPP.
Isometric handgrip test before yoga training produced a
significant rise in
SP and MP and insignificant rise in DP, HR and RPP. After yoga
training,
there was a significant rise in all these parameters. Our results
show that
yoga training optimizes the sympathetic response to stressful
stimuli like
isometric handgrip test and restores the autonomic regulatory
reflex
mechanisms in hypertensive patients.
| | Key words:
yoga training, blood pressure, heart rate,
rate-pressure-product, isometric handgrip
| | |
Modern
man has become a victim of
daily stress and stress related disorders like
essential hypertension, angina, insomnia
and impotency. Being holistic in their
approach, yogic techniques are ideal for
improving one's ability to withstand
stressful stimuli. There is evidence that
yoga is effective for prevention as well as
management of bronchial asthma (1), stress
due to exams (2), anxiety and depression
(3), stress in hypertensive patients (4) and
in the cure/control of essential hypertension
(5). Yoga is also known to improve the
subjective well being (3, 6). Non pharmacological control of essential
hypertension with relaxation methodologies in the form of yoga (7, 8,
9), transcendental
meditation (10) and progressive muscular
relaxation (11) has become more popular
recently, though these techniques have been practiced in the past (12). Most of these
techniques produce long-lasting changes in
the blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR)
if they are practiced regularly (8, 12).
Earlier studies by Selvamurthy et al (5)
have shown that some yogic postural
exercises can control essential hypertension.
Many references are available on non pharmacological
control of essential
hypertension (11, 13, 14) and a number of
workers have used shavasan and other yogic
techniques for the control of essential
hypertension (7, 15, 16).
Rate-pressure-product (RPP) is a reliable
index of myocardial oxygen consumption and
cardiac work and it correlates well with the
myocardial oxygen consumption of normal
subjects as well as patients with angina
pectoris (17). Yogasans may influence RPP
by altering pre-load and or after-load.
However, there is paucity of literature on
the effect of yogasans on RPP in essential
hypertension. In view of this, the present
work was planned to study the effect of yoga
training on BP, HR and RPP. Since vascular
reactivity response can readily be detected
by isometric stress (18), we extended our
work to study the cardiovascular response
to stress with isometric hand-grip (IHG) test
before and after yoga training. | | |
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