Home relaxation techniques for essential hypertension

A 10-week relaxation treatment focused on home practice and self-monitoring of blood pressure for the purpose of lowering blood pressure in patients with essential hypertension. Comparisons were made among relaxation (n = 13), relaxation in combination with electromyographic biofeedback (n = 14), and a control condition in which patients simply monitored their blood pressure (n = 14). These three groups of patients, all of which received antihypertensive medication, were compared with a fourth group that practiced relaxation without drug therapy (n = 17). Relaxation and relaxation/biofeedback were equally effective in reducing blood pressure recorded at home in the morning and evening and produced greater decreases than in the control group. Relaxation without drugs, although somewhat more effective than self-monitoring, did not reduce blood pressure as much as the two conditions in which medication was combined with relaxation. Although reductions over the course of treatment were noted in blood pressure recorded in the laboratory, the four treatment conditions did not differ significantly from one another.