ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide. Many risk factors for CVD can be modified pharmacologically; however, uptake of medications is low, especially in asymptomatic people. Exercise is also effective at reducing CVD risk, but adoption is poor with time-commitment and cost cited as key reasons for this. Repeated remote ischaemic preconditioning (RIPC) and isometric handgrip (IHG) training are both inexpensive, time-efficient interventions which have shown some promise in reducing blood pressure (BP) and improving markers of cardiovascular health and fitness. However, few studies have investigated the effectiveness of these interventions in premenopausal women. METHOD: Thirty healthy females were recruited to twelve supervised sessions of either RIPC or IHG over 4 weeks, or acted as non-intervention controls (CON). BP measurements, flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) and cardiopulmonary exercise tests (CPET) were performed at baseline and after the intervention period. RESULTS: IHG and RIPC were both well-tolerated with 100% adherence to all sessions. A statistically significant reduction in both systolic (- 7.2 mmHg) and diastolic (- 6 mmHg) BP was demonstrated following IHG, with no change following RIPC. No statistically significant improvements were observed in FMD or CPET parameters in any group. CONCLUSIONS: IHG is an inexpensive and well-tolerated intervention which may improve BP; a key risk factor for CVD. Conversely, our single arm RIPC protocol, despite being similarly well-tolerated, did not elicit improvements in any cardiorespiratory parameters in our chosen population.
Subject(s)
Cardiorespiratory Fitness/physiology , Cardiovascular Diseases/therapy , Exercise/physiology , Isometric Contraction/physiology , Blood Pressure/physiology , Cardiovascular Diseases/physiopathology , Endothelium, Vascular/physiology , Female , Hand Strength/physiology , Humans , Hypertension/physiopathology , Middle Aged , Vasodilation/physiologyABSTRACT
The Multivariate Personality Inventory (MPI; Magaro & Smith, 1981), the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility (HGSHS; Shor & Orne, 1962), and the Inventory of Self-Hypnosis (ISH; Shor, 1970) were used to investigate the relationship between personality style and hypnotic procedure in the determination of hypnotic susceptibility. On the basis of MPI scores, a normal college population was segregated into 5 personality styles: hysteric, manic, depressive, character disorder, and compulsive. The hysteric personality was found significantly more hypnotizable than the other personality types in the HGSHS induction context, whereas the compulsive personality was found significantly more hypnotizable in the ISH induction context. Results are discussed in terms of personality and situational factors in relation to previous hypnotic susceptibility research.
Subject(s)
Hypnosis/methods , Personality Tests , Female , Humans , Internal-External Control , Male , Personality Disorders/psychology , PsychometricsABSTRACT
A modification of the tachistoscopic letter detection task employed by Neisser (1963) was utilized to examine hemispheric differences in employing analytic and holistic processing strategies. Stimulus arrays designed to elicit either serial or parallel processing sets were presented to the right hemisphere-left visual field (RH-LVF) or to the left hemisphere-right visual field (LH-RVF). Subjects were explicitly directed to perform an analytic or holistic encoding process on both types of stimulus arrays. The serial array produced longer reaction times than the parallel array for both hemispheres. A RH-LVF reaction time advantage was found across both stimulus sets and instructions. In addition, an overall reaction time advantage was found for holistic instructions relative to analytic instructions, but this superiority was not effected by hemisphere or contextual stimuli.
