Anxiety, Stress-Related Factors, and Blood Pressure in Young Adults

Abstract

Hypertension (HT) is a long-term medical condition characterized by persistently elevated blood pressure (BP) in the arterial vessels. Although HT initially is an asymptomatic condition, it chronically evolves into a major risk factor for cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, and renal diseases that, in turn, represent crucial causes of morbidity and mortality in industrialized countries. HT is a complex disorder that is estimated to affect more than a quarter of the world’s adult population. It is classified on the basis of both its pathophysiology (primary and secondary HT) and on the resting BP values (elevated systolic, diastolic, and pulse pressure). It originates from a complicated interaction of genes and several environmental risk factors including aging, smoking, lack of exercise, overweight and obesity, elevated salt intake, stress, depression, and anxiety. Anxiety and depressive disorders are the most commonly diagnosed mental disorders, affecting millions of people each year and impairing every aspect of everyday life, both of them characterized by affective, cognitive, psychomotor, and neurovegetative symptoms. Moreover, work-related stress has been considered as an important risk factor for HT and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Although different authors have investigated and suggested possible relations between HT, stress, anxiety, and depression during the last decades, a full understanding of the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms has not been satisfactorily achieved, especially in young adults. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of anxiety and work-related stress in the development of HT amongst young health care profession students and the possible related consequences of early CVDs.

Identifying Foreign Language Anxiety When Using an E-Learning System

“…We found a positive correlation between the blood pressure relative to the baseline and the emotion self-report. This finding agree with (Mucci et al 2016) that showed a positive correlation between anxiety and blood pressure. Based on the blood pressure, anxious participants had a higher rate than non-anxious.…”

“…Similar to (Mucci et al 2016;Zhang et al 2011), the blood pressure was higher for anxious learners than non-anxious learners. Although both median and average reading for both groups were in the normal range according to (Whelton et al 2018), there was a slight increase in the average blood pressure reading for anxious learners.…”

“…Other researchers (Gotardi et al 2018;Kantor et al 2001;Zhang et al 2011) found a positive correlation between anxiety and heart rate. Some prior work found a significant association between blood pressure and anxiety (Mucci et al 2016;Zhang et al 2011), but others (Howell et al 2007) found no significant relationship. To label students' emotion, some prior research used observations by expert judges (Baker et al 2012;D'Mello and Graesser 2010) to identify emotions such as boredom and confusion.…”

“…Previous research has described different types of techniques for identifying emotions including self-report (Arevalillo-Herráez et al 2017;Castillejo 2018;Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope 1986;Kerns et al 2014;Maclntyre and Gardner 1994;Monkaresi et al 2017;Wixon et al 2014), physical instruments (Fernandes et al 2018;Gotardi et al 2018;Kantor et al 2001;Keil et al 2018;Krejtz et al 2018;Mucci et al 2016;Weeks, Howell, and Goldin 2013;Zhang et al 2011), and expert observers (Baker et al 2012;D'Mello and Graesser 2010). The most prominent self-report tool is the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) (Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope 1986), which has been shown to reliably measure the anxiety level in classroom settings (Park 2014;Rodríguez and Abreu 2003).…”

The Working Environment as a Platform for the Promotion of Active Aging: An Italian Overview

“…The adaptation of work to an individual's skills should be a continuous and dynamic process and should not be a particular problem for production activities with an appropriate risk assessment [12]. In particular, risk assessment policies should be oriented to all workers, regardless of age, feel motivated to pursue their goals and those of the company [13,14]. An innovative approach is to examine the psychological processes and healthy habits involved in the motivation and interaction with the company system [15 -17].…”