Health Articles

Many people have hypertension, also known as high blood pressure. I myself have mild hypertension. Hopefully I’ll never need to go on medication, and there are several ways to lower blood pressure besides medication.

• Eating a balanced diet is one. Low in saturated fat, with lots of fruits, veggies, fiber, and whole grains is often recommended, and the DASH diet is one example. DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. For those of us who love to eat, this can be tough, but your diet doesn’t need to be perfect to make a difference.
• Exercising regularly will lower your blood pressure, even simply walking 30 min several days a week. Exercising is simple to do, although getting into the habit can be tough. Once you get into the habit it’s not tough, and you may find you even look forward to your daily exercise. I know I do.
• Keeping alcohol intake low helps with hypertension. I have a problem with this as I’m a wine lover. Medical professionals recommend no more than two drinks a day. My doctor has suggested trying close to zero alcohol for a month to see what affect it has, and I am trying that now.
• Reducing stress in your life. This can be tough depending on your life situation. I have a high stress job, a high stress wife, and three little kids, but every little bit helps.
• Weight, keeping it close to your ideal weight. Of course many of the above suggestions help with weight a lot, like exercise, limiting alcohol, and eating a balanced diet. Unfortunately I fight with my weight a lot like many do, and it goes up and down, but averages much lighter than it used to fortunately!
• Not smoking. If you don’t smoke, obviously do not start. If you do smoke, quitting is ideal if possible. It’s easy for some folks and next to impossible, perhaps actually impossible, for some. If you cannot quit, cut down. My friend Grim Jon has cut down to a pack a day from an amazing three and a half to four packs a day!
• Reduce your salt intake. In fact it’s the sodium in the salt that affects blood pressure. Numerous studies have shown that limiting salt has an often significant effect.

There are many ways to potentially reduce your blood pressure other than medication, and I’m working on them, even though mine is only borderline high.
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What is normal range blood pressure? What can be considered healthy? You’d think that there would be a range considered “normal” and that anything outside of that is either too low or too high. The reality is quite different.

High Blood Pressure

The easiest place to start is to realise what is high blood pressure. In most countries this is considered to be anything over 140/90 mmHg.

So does that mean that anything below this figure is either normal or low? Not quite.

Prehypertension

In fact, there is an additional zone called “prehypertension” which is between 121/81 and 139/89 mmHg. If you lie in this range then even though you are not classified as “high”, you are still at an increased risk of cardiovascular disease than you would otherwise be if it were lower.

Best Blood Pressure

Really you should be thinking not in terms of “normal” but in “best”. The best figure to have for your bp is between 115/75 and 120/80. This is really the ideal bp where it is not too low but at the same time you have minimized your risks. This should be everyone’s target.

How To Reach The Ideal

Drug companies, their lobbyists and doctors will tell you that drugs are the way. Recently in the UK, the media made a big story of a study that recommended that everyone over 55 should take blood pressure lowering drugs. They are trying to position them as the next big thing since statins. Quite frankly, this is irresponsible advice.

The side effects from such drugs are debilitating and well known. These drugs are not easily tolerated and are often prescribed in all sorts of combinations in a failed effort to control side effects.

This is all needless because natural methods alone such as changing your diet, taking supplements (e.g. taking herbs for bp), getting a little exercise (not much) and looking at your stress levels are sufficient to bring you down to 115/75 without using any drugs whatsoever.

High blood pressure (otherwise known as hypertension) is a chronic problem facing Americans and those all over the world. Our lifestyles are very different from those of our grandparents, or great-grandparents. We are much more sedentary, eat too many calories, eat poor quality food (fast food, pre-packaged products, few fruits and veggies), and we are much too stressed and overworked. All of these factors combine in multiple ways to constrict our blood vessels, creating high blood pressure.

Here are 6 natural healing remedies you can implement today to help lower your blood pressure naturally!

1. Exercise. Yes, the dreaded “E” word! We’ve heard this a thousand times – eat less, exercise more – for improved overall health. Exercise decreases hypertension by causing blood to pump strenuously through the vessels, stretching vessel walls and maintaining elasticity. Regular exercise also decreases appetite and burns calories, so your weight is likely to go down – another way to lower your blood pressure.

2. Eat garlic! Not only does garlic traditionally keep the vampires away, it reduces your blood pressure by thinning your blood, making it easier for your heart to pump. Always check with your doctor before adding garlic supplements to your diet.

3. Niacin or Vitamin B3 helps to lower hypertension by providing vasodilator effects – that is, it allows the vessel walls to open and expand, allowing more blood through. Again, check with your doctor prior to beginning Niacin supplementation. A very common side effect is “flushing”, i.e. – feeling red, hot, prickly skin mostly around the face and neck, but also on the upper torso and arms. To reduce this effect, ease into niacin supplementation gradually or buy flush-free formulations.

4. Apple Cider Vinegar – 2 Tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (ACV) mixed in about a cup of water or juice, drunk 3 times a day, has been shown to dramatically reduce hypertension in just a few weeks. It should be raw, unfiltered ACV, available in health food stores and many groceries.

5. Yoga – we all know that stress can contribute to many ailments, including hypertension. Adding a mind-body exercise such as yoga can help you to relax and reduce your stress levels, thus reducing your blood pressure.

6. Eat more fish! Preliminary studies suggest fish oil may help lower blood pressure. While fish oil contains both the beneficial EFA and DHA fatty acids, it is the DHA which seems to be effective in lowering blood pressure. This can also be taken as a capsule.

When I first found out I had high blood pressure, I was told right away I would have to lose weight. Actually, it wouldn’t have taken anyone 12 years of medical school to come to this conclusion. Some semblance of eyesight would do the trick.

Still, from a hypertension standpoint, a medical connection was made. I had high blood pressure, I was overweight and if I remained so, my blood pressure would never reach a normal level. So, as I reached out for a diet to help me lower my weight and blood pressure, I needed one question to be answered before I embarked on my weight loss regime.

Will Any Diet Do?
The question is: “Is any diet good enough to lower my blood pressure as long as it gets my weight into the recommended range?” The answer I found after much reading and talking to professionals about it was a surprising yes; with just one caveat.

High blood pressure and high sodium levels have an inner connection. Whenever you are told your blood pressure is elevated, the next thing you hear will be “stop eating salt.” So really, the only restriction I found for designing my diet was to not design one that would raise my sodium intake and preferably design one that would lower it. That was pretty much it.

How About the Atkins Diet?
A doctor actually told me a high protein, high fat type of diet would be okay for me to use as long as I lost weight. “If you get your weight down,” he said, “it will be better for your health in the long run.”

As it turned out, I didn’t choose a high protein diet because this type of diet tends to make me irregular, gives very little choice over what I can eat and buying all that meat all the time costs a fortune. Still, it was an option I didn’t think I’d be given.
Tips to control high blood pressure
You should ask your doctor which diet he thinks would be best for you because your medical situation may be different from mine. The problem I had was being just plain too fat. Still, I did want to share with you the fact that in a hypertension controlling situation, the medical community seems to place a higher value on lowering your weight than it does on exactly how you do it. This is, if your weight loss plan is within reason, of course. I don’t think they’d approve of “The 1,600 calorie a day root beer diet.”
Jason Falson