Improving cardiovascular recovery from stress with brief poststress exercise.

OBJECTIVE While exercising before a stressor has been shown to limit the magnitude of stress responses, we test the use of exercise as a coping mechanism after the stressor, to limit the duration of the stress response. DESIGN After doing difficult mental arithmetic with harassment, male and female undergraduates (N = 102) either walked in place or sat still for 3 minutes, then all sat for a recovery period. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Continuous blood pressure and heart rate monitoring was done throughout. Changes from an initial resting baseline were calculated. RESULTS During the manipulation, blood pressure for exercisers was higher than for controls, but soon after the tasks were completed the participants who had exercised had significantly lower systolic (SBP; M = 3.5 mmHg above prestress baseline, p < .01) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP; M = 0.3 mmHg above prestress baseline, p < .001) than those who had not exercised (SBP: M = 8.8 mmHg, DBP: M = 4.8 mmHg). CONCLUSION Although exercising when angry adds to initial cardiovascular arousal, it improves recovery afterward. We discuss possible mechanisms for this effect.