High blood pressure robs sufferers of 'emotional understanding'

Washington: People with higher blood pressure have a reduced ability to recognise angry, fearful, sad and happy faces and text passages, a new study has found.

James A. McCubbin and his colleagues from the Clemson University have said that some people have "emotional dampening" that may cause them to respond inappropriately to anger and other emotions in them.

"It's like living in a world of email without smiley faces," McCubbin said.

"We put smiley faces in emails to show when we are just kidding. Otherwise some people may misinterpret our humour and get angry," he said.

McCubbin said that the "emotional dampening" may often lead to miscommunication and poor job performance.

"For example, if your work supervisor is angry, you may mistakenly believe that he or she is just kidding.

"This can lead to miscommunication, poor job performance and increased psychosocial distress.

"If you have emotional dampening, you may distrust others because you cannot read emotional meaning in their face or their verbal communications.

"You may even take more risks because you cannot fully appraise threats in the environment," he said.

He also said that the link between dampening of emotions and blood pressure is believed to be involved in the development of hypertension and risk for coronary heart disease, and may also be involved in disorders of emotion regulation, such as bipolar disorders and depression.

The study has been published in journal Psychosomatic Medicine.