Frequency and perceptions of life stress are associated with reduced cardiovascular stress-response adaptation

Psychological stress is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Individual differences in cardiovascular responses to stress may be an underlying mechanism. The literature examining the relationships between frequency and perceptions of life stress with cardiovascular reactivity to acute stress in the laboratory is inconclusive. Recent work highlights the need to measure cardiovascular reactivity across multiple stress exposures to obtain more comprehensive profiles of reactivity by assessing adaptation over time. The aims of the current study were to examine the relationships between frequency and perceptions of stressful life events with cardiovascular reactivity, as well as adaptation of cardiovascular reactivity over time. Four hundred and fifty-three healthy, young adults (mean (SD) age = 19.5 (1.3) years, 62% female, 66.2% Caucasian, 17.7% Hispanic) completed a single laboratory visit, which included two identical, stress-testing protocols, each consisting of a 10-minute baseline and 4-minute stress task. Heart rate (HR) and systolic/diastolic blood pressure (S/DBP) were recorded throughout. Participants completed the Undergraduate Stress Questionnaire (USQ) and Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Results indicate that greater frequency and perceptions of life stress were independently associated with blunted HR and DBP reactivity at the first stress exposure and less habituation of HR and DBP reactivity across both exposures, even after controlling for confounding variables. The present study suggests that higher frequency and perceptions of stress in daily life may harm the body's ability to respond effectively to short-term stress and also disrupt healthy adaptation of stress responses over repeated exposures, thus increasing risk of cardiovascular disease outcomes.