‘I’m going to have a heart attack’ we hear in our heads as we feel like we are breathing heavily as our boss pressures us to finish that project today without fail. Who has not said that to himself during a moment of intense work where he feels that he has lost control?
And we are not so misguided if this situation is repeated too often. Chronic work stress is a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, so much so that it can even increase the probability of having a heart attack by up to 50%.
However, in these circumstances, it can be really difficult to find time to ‘de-stress’, even more so if we have toreconcile work with family life. How do we do it? One possibility is described by Geoffrey W. Melville and his team in an article published in the magazineEvidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. In their experiment, a group of office workers performed yoga exercises based on sitting posture, another group carried out meditation exercises and a third group, the control, did not make any kind of modification in their work routine. Yoga and meditation exercises lasted 15 minutes, after which various physiological and psychological measurements of stress markers were taken. The researchers found that both the meditation and yoga groupsperceived less stress and showed a lower respiratory rate than the control group. In addition, the group that practiced meditation also lowered their heart rate and blood pressure. According to Melville and his collaborators, these effects could be mediated bybreathing effects, and suggest that the continued practice of these types of activities could be useful in managing stress in the workplace, resulting in benefits for cardiovascular health.
Marisa Fernández, Senior Neuropsychologist , Unobrain
