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Coping with Racism: The Impact of Prayer on Cardiovascular Reactivity and Post-stress Recovery in African American Women

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Annals of Behavioral Medicine

Abstract

Background

Prayer is often used to cope with racism-related stress. Little is known about its impact on cardiovascular function.

Purpose

This study examined how prayer coping relates to cardiovascular reactivity (CVR), post-stress recovery, and affective reactivity in response to racism-related stress.

Methods

African American women (n = 81; mean age=20 years) reported their use of prayer coping on the Perceived Racism Scale and completed anger recall and racism recall tasks while undergoing monitoring of systolic and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), and hemodynamic measures. Prayer coping was examined for associations with CVR, recovery, and affective change scores using general linear models with repeated measures.

Results

Higher prayer coping was associated with decreased state stress and DBP reactivity during racism recall (p's < 0.05) and with decreased DBP and increased HRV during racism recall recovery(p's < 0.05).

Conclusions

Coping with racism by utilizing prayer may have cardiovascular benefits for African American women.

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Acknowledgments

The first author's graduate research was partially supported by a National Institute of General Medical Sciences Initiative for Minority Student Development Grant (R25-GM55036). A Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Services Research and Development (HSR&D) post-doctoral fellowship currently supports her research.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the University of Washington, the University of Maryland, or Ohio State University.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to disclose.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Denise C. Cooper Ph.D.

  2. Department of Psychology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Julian F. Thayer Ph.D.

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Shari R. Waldstein Ph.D.

  4. Northwest HSR&D Center of Excellence VA Puget Sound Health Care System, 1100 Olive Way, Suite 1400, Seattle, WA, 98101, USA

    Denise C. Cooper Ph.D.

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  1. Denise C. Cooper Ph.D.
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  2. Julian F. Thayer Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Denise C. Cooper Ph.D..

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Cooper, D.C., Thayer, J.F. & Waldstein, S.R. Coping with Racism: The Impact of Prayer on Cardiovascular Reactivity and Post-stress Recovery in African American Women. ann. behav. med. 47, 218–230 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-013-9540-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12160-013-9540-4

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