Mindfulness Attitude to Deliver Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension

African Americans with prehypertension have a 35% greater risk of progressing to hypertension than whites. Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) is a gold standard intervention for hypertension self-management. However, the barriers to self-management of hypertension reported by AAs include stress, including perceived stress related to racism/discrimination; perceived lack of control over getting hypertension in the future; limited social support; and low motivation to change behaviors. Activating the emotional and task areas of the brain are hypothesized to improve self-management behaviors. The purpose of this study is to test the effects of a promising new self-management intervention for AAs, a Mindfulness Attitude to Deliver the Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension (MAD DASH) that departs from conventional interventions to address prehypertension by combining two self-management interventions (Mindfulness and DASH) in a group setting. Teaching mindfulness; a form of meditation and the DASH diet to participants is expected to result in a reduction in blood pressure as compared to usual care or DASH diet education alone.