Blood pressure and heart rate response to isometric exercise and mental arithmetic in normotensive and hypertensive subjects.

1. Sustained hand-grip exercise and mental arithmetic were performed by normal and hypertensive subjects. Blood pressure and heart rate were recorded with a device which allows blind and unbiased measurements, based on the conventional cuff method. 2. Both stimuli caused increases in heart rate and systolic and diastolic blood pressure, which were greater for isometric exercise than for mental arithmetic. 3. Normal females had a greater response to repeated exercise, and had a smaller systolic pressure elevation during mental arithmetic than the other groups. 4. Repeated testing showed good reproducibility in normal subjects.