High Blood pressure can make some socially ackward from MSNBC

By Joan Raymond

It’s no secret that high blood pressure ups your risk for heart attack and stroke. But now scientists are saying it could also affect how you perceive emotions.

In a new study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, researchers found that individuals with higher than normal blood pressures not only had a tough time assigning emotions to text passages they read but also had problems recognizing angry, fearful, sad and happy faces when looking at photographs.

The phenomenon is called “emotional dampening,” a kind of reduced response to both positive and negative life events, explains lead author James McCubbin, professor of psychology at Clemson University.

In previous studies, individuals with emotional dampening showed reduced responses to both pain and stress.

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