Self-hypnosis lowers blood pressure swinging and overswinging in circadian hyperamplitudetension, CHAT

On 7 patients, we examined the effect of self-hypnosis (autogenic training, AT) upon the (relatively) densely and automatically monitored and chronobiologically analyzed blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR). The acceptance criteria were 1) a conventionally diagnosed hypertension, 'office hypertension' or 'white-coat hypertension' and 2) the patient's willingness to monitor around-the-clock BP and HR for 7 days before and again after one and/or 2 months of continued daily AT. AT lowered the circadian double amplitudes of systolic (S) BP (P<0.010) and diastolic (D) BP (P=0.016) and deserves a test of its optimal timing as a first-line treatment for and excessive circadian amplitude of BP, i.e., of BP overswinging associated with a very large risk of ischemic stroke and nephropathy.