Ambulatory blood pressure variation: allostasis and adaptation.

Allostasis is defined as achieving stability through change and was originally coined as a term to describe the adaptive variability of blood pressure. While there have been a growing number of studies using ambulatory blood pressure monitors that have examined the sources of blood pressure variation in everyday life, these studies have largely not conceptualized that variation in allostatic terms. This brief overview evaluates ambulatory blood pressure variability and its sources in the context of allostasis and adaptation. The effects of job strain and the impact of evolutionary aspects of population biology on blood pressure variation are also discussed.