A supportive spouse or colleague can help stressed workers to bring down their blood pressure, new research suggests.

In one study, nearly 250 full-time staff at a large teaching hospital in Toronto volunteered to wear blood pressure monitors for 24 hours at work and at home and to fill out questionnaires about their stress levels.

All of the participants were married or had partners.

Dr. Sheldon Tobe

The researchers found job strain and marital stress were linked to high blood pressure, said Dr. Sheldon Tobe, a Heart and Stroke Foundation investigator, who presented the findings on Tuesday at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress in Calgary.

Previous studies have concluded that jobs like air traffic control, with high demands and limited freedom, are linked to the highest levels of job stress and high blood pressure.

"Over time that may have an effect on their heart," said Tobe, a hypertension researcher at Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. This "makes their heart work harder, may make their blood vessels wear out faster, become more brittle over decades."

Tobe's team also found stress at home can make matters worse. On the other hand, a supportive spouse can reduce or eliminate the harmful effects of high blood pressure from a hard day's work.

A similar study in Quebec about the effects of supportive co-workers had similar conclusions. For seven years, Dr. Alain Milot of Laval University and his colleagues surveyed more than 6,000 white-collar workers without heart disease or hypertension.

They found the social support of colleagues or supervisors can significantly reduce a worker's perception of the psychological demands of the job.

The worst case is a tough job with nasty co-workers and conflict at home. In that case, Tobe suggests seeing a family doctor to ask for medication, counseling or both.