The disidentification component of decentering is a predictor of nighttime systolic and diastolic blood pressure dipping
Authors: Toorongian Colleen , Bauman Matthew , Thivierge Grant , Stanic Radmila , Durocher John 
Published: May 2023

Decentering is a component of mindfulness related to being able to separate from emotions and to adopt a non-judgmental view. Prior studies on 8-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) courses have demonstrated that as the ability to decenter increases, anxiety levels decrease. One of our recent studies demonstrated that a higher ability to decenter was associated with lower arterial stiffness. The purpose of this study was to determine if any of the three constructs of decentering (i.e., meta-awareness, disidentification, and nonreactivity) influences nocturnal blood pressure dipping. Twenty-eight adults (age 25±1 years; BMI 26±1 kg/m2) with resting blood pressure ≥120/80 mmHg volunteered for this study. All participants were non-obese, and reported no history of diabetes, smoking, or taking cardiovascular medication. Participants completed an 11-item decentering questionnaire, and then were asked to wear an ambulatory blood pressure monitor (ABPM) and actigraphy watch for 24-hours. Brachial blood pressures were measured by the ABPM every 20 minutes while awake and every 30 minutes while asleep. Daytime and nighttime systolic arterial pressures (SAP) and diastolic arterial pressures (DAP) were measured by the Spacelabs ABPM, and we calculated nighttime dipping percentages for SAP and DAP after adjusting sleep and wake times based on actigraphy data. To identify the factor structure for the decentering scale, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was performed. EFA revealed a nine-item, three-factor structure that explained 71.53% of the total variance, consisting of meta-awareness (two-items; 13.37%), disidentification (three-items; 41.11%), and nonreactivity (four-items; 17.05%). Two items were dropped from the final scale due to improper factor loadings. The items for each of the three factors were submitted to a reliability analysis, revealing acceptable Cronbach’s alpha (α > 0.70) for meta-awareness (α = 0.71), disidentification (α = 0.79), and nonreactivity (α = 0.75). Multiple linear regression analyses indicated disidentification as a significant predictor of SAP dipping (β = 3.333, p = 0.032) and DAP dipping (β = 3.898, p = 0.049). The meta-awareness and nonreactivity constructs of decentering were not significant predictors of nighttime blood pressure dipping. Results suggest that greater disidentification may be associated with lower cardiovascular risk (greater SAP and DAP dipping). These findings provide promising insight into the benefits of MBSR and decentering on ambulatory blood pressure patterns, with the potential benefits of lowering overall risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD).

NIH (1R15HL140596-01); Nils K. Nelson Endowment Fund

This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.