Dr. Alexandra Tyra
PhD Graduate, Psychology & Neuroscience
Bio
Alexandra Tyra graduated Summa Cum Laude from Northern Arizona University in 2017 with dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Psychological Sciences and Criminology/Criminal Justice. She continued her academic journey at Baylor University, earning both her Master of Arts (2019) and Ph.D. (2024) in Psychology, with an emphasis in Behavioral Neuroscience. Her doctoral dissertation investigated the dynamic interplay between emotion regulation and cardiovascular responses to repeated acute psychological stress, offering valuable insights into the potential long-term effects of emotion regulation on cardiovascular health. During her graduate studies, Alex also completed a Fulbright year in the United Kingdom (2022-2023), obtaining an additional MSc by Research in Sport, Exercise, and Rehabilitation Sciences. Currently, Alex is working as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Baylor, where her research continues to explore how diverse psychosocial factors influence the established relationship between stress and cardiovascular health.
Dissertation
Emotion regulation and cardiovascular stress habituation: A
comprehensive exploration using cross-sectional and experimental approaches
Abstract
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of death in the United States, claiming more lives each year than cancer and chronic lower respiratory disease combined. In 2020, CVD accounted for over 19 million deaths globally. Even so, we know that CVD can be prevented, and research is emphasizing the role of psychosocial factors in CVD etiology. Indeed, emotions play a critical role in mental and physical health outcomes, particularly cardiovascular health. The experience of negative emotions poses proportionate levels of health risk as compared to more traditional factors (e.g., smoking, physical inactivity, inadequate diet, obesity), whereas the experience of positive emotions has been identified as health protective. Thus, effective regulation of emotions may be critical for favorable long-term health outcomes. Emotion regulation involves monitoring and subsequently modifying the experience, manifestation, and expression of emotions. It is not a fixed trait, but a skill learned through socialization and experience over time. Emotion regulation is a modifiable predictor of disease that, if improved, may promote cardiovascular health and resilience. More research is needed to investigate the specific underlying mechanisms that link emotion regulation to biomarkers of CVD.
Poor emotion regulation may be implicated in CVD through maladaptive cardiovascular responses to psychological stress. This mechanism is often tested through acute laboratory stress testing, during which a participant engages in a well-validated and standardized stress task (e.g., mental arithmetic, speech delivery). Physiological measurements are recorded before and during the task, thus allowing researchers to assess how different systems of the body respond during stress exposure as compared to resting baseline. Prior research has established robust relationships between individual differences in cardiovascular stress responses and a wide range of psychosocial variables, as well as biomarkers of disease. For example, exaggerated (i.e., excessively high) cardiovascular responses to acute laboratory stress are directly associated with clinical risk factors for CVD (e.g., hypertension, atherosclerosis) and CVD mortality. Likewise, blunted (i.e., excessively low) cardiovascular responses to acute laboratory stress are equally as damaging through associations with correlates of CVD (e.g., increased adiposity, smoking, and mood disorders). That said, research examining emotion regulation and cardiovascular responses to stress is relatively mixed and inconclusive; this is likely due to discrepancies in how emotion regulation is defined and measured, as well as the types of laboratory stress paradigms employed.
... this dissertation offers preliminary evidence of an association between poor emotion regulation and blunted cardiovascular stress responding, thus suggesting potential implications for long-term physical health via adverse health behaviors. Furthermore, impulse control difficulties when distressed may be indirectly linked to CVD via poor cardiovascular habituation; however, no such associations were evident for self-reported (or instructed) emotion regulation strategies. The findings of this project collectively emphasize the complexity of emotion regulation's role in cardiovascular health, thus urging a more tailored and context-sensitive approach in future research endeavors and clinical interventions.
What Faculty Say
Alex ... identified gaps in the literature: 1) scant research examining self-report trait with cardiovascular responses to stress, possibly due to a file drawer problem; 2) use of limited assessment of emotion regulation tendencies when examining with cardiovascular stress reactivity; and 3) studies only examining the relationship between emotion regulation tendencies in response to a single stressor (i.e., not account for the possibility of emotion suppression on cardiovascular reactivity habituation). Alex developed 3 independent, rigorous, and innovative research studies using gold standard methodology in the field to address these limitations for her dissertation.