Cardiovascular Reactivity and Behavioral Health

The purpose of this article is to show that cardiovascular reactivity is an important topic within the field of behavioral health. It has been demonstrated that the cardiovascular system responds differentially to stressors that encourage effortful active coping as opposed to passive coping. However, it is also well established that individuals exposed to the same stressor exhibit marked variability in their cardiovascular responses. Evidence from studies of temporal stability of individual differences to laboratory stressors support the view that cardiovascular reactivity may be considered as a psychophysiological trait. The identification of stable individual-specific patterns of exaggerated cardiovascular reactivity during psychologically challenging tasks appears to be important for understanding the development of essential hypertension. Recurrent episodes of stress-induced sympathetic activation associated with non-adaptive hemodynamic responses (non-adaptive with respect to the immediate metabolic demands), give rise to autoregulatory and structural changes in the resistive vessels. Thus, cardiovascular reactivity may be an important aspect of assessing cardiovascular disease risk. Possible application of reactivity testing in a risk-ascertainment process was discussed.