Brain Connections and Blood Pressure

"Mindfulness and DASH diet education will include a didactic presentation on stress, theoretical material related to mindfulness, the somatic mind/body connection, relaxation, yoga, meditation, self-awareness, and bodily cues relating to emotional reactivity. Practices will include the body scan, gentle yoga movement, walking/sitting meditation, breathing, relaxation. Additionally, daily 20 min individual practices are done at least 5x/week delivered via a compact disc player or on a preloaded device. Each participant is asked to track his/her daily meditation practice and given a diary for adherence records. A combination of didactic, experiential, and hands-on activities will be done to deliver DASH diet guidelines."

The attention control group will attend eight, 2.5 hours sessions on non-health topics such as personal safety, fire prevention, cold weather protection, disaster preparation, internet safety, aging in place, how to know when it's time to move and managing your money.