Mindfulness Meditation: An Interventional Tool to Attenuate Cardiovascular Reactivity to Mental Stress in Undergraduate Medical Students.
Annals of African medicine April 16, 2026 Ragini Rajappa, Ved Prakash Varshney, Mona Bedi
A single session of mindfulness meditation reduced systolic blood pressure reactivity to acute mental stress in thirty healthy male Indian undergraduate medical students. In a pre- and post-comparative interventional study, participants showed a statistically significant decrease in systolic blood pressure reactivity after meditation compared to before, while diastolic blood pressure and heart rate reactivity did not change significantly. The authors conclude that even a one-time mindfulness meditation intervention can influence cardiovascular reactivity to mental stress.