Divorce can lead to high blood pressure

People who experience persistent sleep problems after a divorce may be at risk for potentially harmful increases in blood pressure, a new study has warned.
A growing body of research links divorce to significant negative health effects and even early death, yet few studies have looked at why that connection may exist.
Divorce-related sleep troubles may be partly to blame, suggest the researchers.
"In the initial few months after a separation, sleep problems are probably pretty normal, and this is an adjustment process that people can typically cope with well," said David Sbarra, an associate professor of psychology at University of Arizona, US.

"But sleep problems that persist for an extended period may mean something different. It may mean that people are potentially becoming depressed, that they're struggling with getting their life going again, and it is these people that are particularly susceptible to health problems," Sbarra said.
The study looked at 138 people who had physically separated from or divorced their partner about 16 weeks before the start of the study.

Participants were asked to report on their quality of sleep during three lab visits over a seven-and-a-half-month period, using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, which takes into consideration sleep issues ranging from tossing and turning to snoring to difficulty falling and staying asleep.

Participants' blood pressure also was measured at each of the three lab visits.
Although researchers did not observe a relationship between sleep complaints and blood pressure levels at the participants' first lab visits, they did observe a delayed effect, with participants showing increased systolic and diastolic blood pressure in later visits as a function of earlier sleep problems.
"We saw changes in resting blood pressure were associated with sleep problems three months earlier. Earlier sleep problems predicted increases in resting blood pressure over time," Sbarra said.
Researchers found that the longer peoples' sleep problems persisted after their separation, the more likely those problems were to have an adverse effect on blood pressure.

"What we found was if you're having sleep problems up to about 10 weeks after your separation, they don't appear to be associated with your future increase in blood pressure," Sbarra said.
"However, after 10 or so weeks - after some sustained period of time - there seems to be a cumulative bad effect," Sbarra said.
For people who have high blood pressure to begin with, the increase is not to be taken lightly, Sbarra noted.
The study appears in the journal Health Psychology.