اثرات قلبی عروقی روانشناختی و انباشته نشخوار فکری خشم تکرار شده و سرکوب دیداری- فضایی

Brooding rumination is associated with depressed mood, increased negative affect, prolonged anger and inhibited cardiovascular (CV) recovery. Distraction from rumination on a stressful interpersonal encounter is associated with faster CV recovery and decreased negative affect. Studies have suggested that a concurrent visuospatial (VS) task inhibits the maintenance of imagery associated with the perseveration of intrusive negative memories. 120 healthy participants were recruited for the study. As an analogue of repeated angry rumination, the authors explored the effects of repeated visual recall of a provocative confederate and the subsequent impact of two visuospatial (VS) distraction tasks on negative affect, blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR). Repeated recall of the provocation generated repeatedly elevated HR with a cumulative trend that may have CV disease risk implications for chronic ruminators. VS distraction did not aid recovery compared with the Control task.

Anger experience and expression is a widely researched domain spanning cognitive, emotional and physiological features. Whilst some contradictory findings exist in the psychophysiology literature regarding the effects of suppression of anger and to a lesser degree, anger expression (e.g. Hogan and Linden, 2004 and Suls et al., 1995), many researchers agree that aggressive expression or suppression of anger is detrimental to one's CV health (see for example Davidson et al., 1999, Siegman et al., 2000 and Siegman and Snow, 1997; and Friedman & Booth-Kewley, 1987). The anger–hypertension model posits that stressors tend to generate acute levels of BP (reactivity) and that over time this results in elevation of the tonic BP level (attenuated recovery) leading to hypertension and incidence of atherosclerosis (Manuck et al., 1990). Linden et al., 1997 and Linden and Long, 1987 contend that persistent BP elevation (poor recovery) is as clinically important as physiological reactivity, but that the former has received far less empirical attention. Delayed HR recovery and elevated resting HR have also been implicated in CV disease risk (e.g. Jae et al., 2008) with chronic psychological stress (e.g. Lucini et al., 2005) and rumination (Linden et al., 1997) posited as mechanisms for increased autonomic activity and decreased parasympathetic activity. In contrast to the extensive literature linking anger and elevated BP with hypertension, fewer studies have focussed on anger and HR. Earle et al. (1999) found that the largest physiological reaction to harassment for females was for HR, not BP and Brosschot and Thayer (2003) reported that negative rumination was linked to prolonged attenuation of HR, post-provocation.