# Self-Selected Leisure Promotes Ambulatory Blood Pressure Dipping: A Within-Person Randomized Field Experiment

## TL;DR

Engaging in self-selected leisure activities may help lower nighttime blood pressure, reducing future cardiovascular risk.

## Contribution

This study is the first to show that self-selected leisure activities can promote nighttime blood pressure dipping in a randomized experiment.

## Key findings

- Participants showed higher diastolic blood pressure dipping on days with self-selected leisure activities.
- The effect remained significant after adjusting for BMI and race/ethnicity.
- Self-selected leisure activities may reduce future cardiovascular disease risk through improved nighttime BP dipping.

## Abstract

An early indicator of future cardiovascular risk is lower levels of nighttime blood pressure (BP) dipping from day to night. Prior work has been limited to identifying health behaviors that can promote greater dipping. This pilot study proposes that one possible set of behaviors may be engagement in self-selected leisure activities (SSLAs, or freely chosen non-work activities that are performed with the purpose of relaxation and/or mental escape), which have been linked with reduced daily stress and general daily BP control. Healthy young adult college students [N = 32; 78.1% (n = 25) female, 71.9% (n = 23) white, with an average body mass index (BMI) of 26.31 (SD = 2.46)] visited our laboratory twice within approximately one week. At each visit, the participants were fitted with an ambulatory monitor to collect BP over 24 h. On each day, participants were randomly assigned to either engage in an agreed-upon SSLA or go about their day as usual, except to refrain from engaging in assigned SSLAs; compliance was verified by daily diaries. When accounting for BMI and race/ethnicity, the results showed a higher percentage of BP dipping on the SSLA versus control day for diastolic BP (d = 0.54). SSLAs may be associated with reduced future cardiovascular disease through a nighttime BP dipping effect.