How To Control High Blood Pressure Naturally
Stop smoking. Not only will this help keep your blood pressure in line, you’ll also diminish your risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Smoking is main risk factor for atherosclerosis.Smoking injures blood vessel walls and speeds up the process of hardening of the arteries. So even though it does not cause high blood pressure, smoking is bad for anyone, especially those with high blood pressure. If you smoke, quit. If you don’t smoke, don’t start. Once you quit, your risk of having a heart attack is reduced after the first year. So you have a lot to gain by quitting.
Weight Reduction. Obese patients should lose weight.There’s a direct link between being overweight and having high blood pressure. The more overweight you are, the greater the risk. Start by making small changes. Cut 200 to 300 calories from your diet each day — about the equivalent of saying “no” to two chocolate chip cookies.
Decrease salt intake. High salt intake is linked to high blood pressure. You should consume no more than 2,000 milligrams of sodium per day (about one teaspoon of salt). The average American consumes twice that, often through canned soups, frozen dinners, soy sauce, pickles, olives and processed cheeses, which are loaded with sodium. Read food labels and select reduced-sodium products. Try to select food with low salt.
Add more fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products to your plate. Eat one additional fruit or vegetable with every meal. Shrink the size of your daily meat intake to six ounces, and designate at least two dinners a week as meat-free. Fatty diets do not directly affect blood pressure. However, saturated fats and cholesterol in foods raise blood cholesterol, which increases the risk for heart disease. Foods high in fats also are high in calories, which must be reduced if you need to lose weight. Like smoking high cholestrol is also a major risk factor for atherosclerosis.
Limit alcohol consumption. Drink no more than one 12-ounce beer, one 5-ounce glass of wine or one swallow (1.5 ounces) of 80-proof whiskey if you’re a woman. Men can double these amounts. Anything more elevates blood pressure. You can reduce your blood pressure by 5-10 mmHg by just restricting Alcohol intake.
Exercise. First, get the green light from your physician. Then, slowly introduce aerobic exercise into your life, increasing the time and intensity at a pace that feels right, aiming for at least a 30-minute workout most days of the week. Young people should jog for 30 minutes three times per week and elderly patients should walk longer distances than usual.
Decrease Stress and Anxiety: Yes stress and anxiety also play role in high blood presure.If You want your blood pressure with in normal limits, try your self to get happy all times. Try extra curricular activities to make your mind stress free. Stress can make blood pressure go up for a while, and it has been thought to contribute to high blood pressure. But the long-term effects of stress are as yet unclear. Stress management techniques do not seem to prevent high blood pressure. However, such techniques may have other benefits, such as making you feel better or helping you to control over-eating.
Caffeine and Blood Pressure: Caffeine in coffee as well as in other drinks, such as tea and sodas, only raises blood pressure temporarily. So you should be able to continue to have drinks that contain caffeine, unless you are sensitive to it or have heart disease and your doctor tells you not to have any.
Eat adequate amounts of potassium-rich foods. Potassium, another mineral essential to good health, works in concert with sodium to regulate blood pressure. Studies have shown that people who consume more potassium have lower blood pressures than those who consume less. Rich sources of potassium include many fruits, such as cantaloupe, bananas, watermelon, oranges and orange juice, as well as potatoes, spinach, and zucchini. (Important note: if taking medication for high blood pressure, such as diuretics, consult a doctor before using salt substitutes that contain high amounts of potassium.
A lonely heart could just be one of the important factors that causes high blood pressure. In fact, a recent study shows loneliness can be as bad for your heart as being over weight or inactive. Could spending time with friends be the answer to lowering your blood pressure?
How Is Blood Pressure Affected?
When the University of Chicago studied a group of 229 men and women between the ages of 50 and 68 … they found something interesting. After eliminating all other factors, they found that those who lacked comradeship were more likely to have high blood pressure.
The blood pressure of the loneliest people in the study was 10 to 30 mm Hg higher than those who had companionship. Compared to this … losing 10 kg of excess body weight can reduce your blood pressure by 5 to 20 mm Hg … physical activity has been shown to lower it by 4 to 9 mm Hg.
This shows the importance of social relations in our lives. A big part of living a healthy life is enjoying good relationships with friends and family.
My research on naturally lowering blood pressure showed … spending joyful time with friends is good for your health. Laughing with your comrades … joking with your pals … enjoying a fun time with your family … these times relax you and counter high blood pressure.
More Loneliness and High Blood Pressure
As our population ages and more people are living alone … loneliness and high blood pressure are on the increase. The first of the baby boomer generation are hitting 60 this year … a large group of people will retire and move away from their circle of workplace friends. Family and friends move, get sick, pass away … more and more elderly are feeling loneliness.
As household sizes decrease … as the number of people living alone increases … the risk of loneliness increases — and with it, the risk of heart disease.
Social relationships need to be replenished … you need to find new friends.
How To Avoid Loneliness
Get involved. Joining volunteer work and social groups allows you to make new friends. Getting out and about … being active in your community … it’s not only good for exercise, but also for social contact. It’s a great way to build your comradeship.
Join volunteer activities in your community. Help out with groups keeping parks clean … join in area patrols … take part in local blood drives … work on a campaign. Doing something for your community not only makes you feel useful … it brings you into close contact with others.
Take college night courses, join hiking groups, go on a tour … all are great ways to meet interesting people. Have fun and share a laugh.
Be open to new friendships … avoid being a lone wolf … avoid high blood pressure. Take this one step to protect your heart, today.
Stop smoking. Not only will this help keep your blood pressure in line, you’ll also diminish your risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Smoking is main risk factor for atherosclerosis.Smoking injures blood vessel walls and speeds up the process of hardening of the arteries. So even though it does not cause high blood pressure, smoking is bad for anyone, especially those with high blood pressure. If you smoke, quit. If you don’t smoke, don’t start. Once you quit, your risk of having a heart attack is reduced after the first year. So you have a lot to gain by quitting.
Weight Reduction. Obese patients should lose weight.There’s a direct link between being overweight and having high blood pressure. The more overweight you are, the greater the risk. Start by making small changes. Cut 200 to 300 calories from your diet each day — about the equivalent of saying “no” to two chocolate chip cookies.
Decrease salt intake. High salt intake is linked to high blood pressure. You should consume no more than 2,000 milligrams of sodium per day (about one teaspoon of salt). The average American consumes twice that, often through canned soups, frozen dinners, soy sauce, pickles, olives and processed cheeses, which are loaded with sodium. Read food labels and select reduced-sodium products. Try to select food with low salt.
Add more fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products to your plate. Eat one additional fruit or vegetable with every meal. Shrink the size of your daily meat intake to six ounces, and designate at least two dinners a week as meat-free. Fatty diets do not directly affect blood pressure. However, saturated fats and cholesterol in foods raise blood cholesterol, which increases the risk for heart disease. Foods high in fats also are high in calories, which must be reduced if you need to lose weight. Like smoking high cholestrol is also a major risk factor for atherosclerosis.
Limit alcohol consumption. Drink no more than one 12-ounce beer, one 5-ounce glass of wine or one swallow (1.5 ounces) of 80-proof whiskey if you’re a woman. Men can double these amounts. Anything more elevates blood pressure. You can reduce your blood pressure by 5-10 mmHg by just restricting Alcohol intake.
Exercise. First, get the green light from your physician. Then, slowly introduce aerobic exercise into your life, increasing the time and intensity at a pace that feels right, aiming for at least a 30-minute workout most days of the week. Young people should jog for 30 minutes three times per week and elderly patients should walk longer distances than usual.
Decrease Stress and Anxiety: Yes stress and anxiety also play role in high blood presure.If You want your blood pressure with in normal limits, try your self to get happy all times. Try extra curricular activities to make your mind stress free. Stress can make blood pressure go up for a while, and it has been thought to contribute to high blood pressure. But the long-term effects of stress are as yet unclear. Stress management techniques do not seem to prevent high blood pressure. However, such techniques may have other benefits, such as making you feel better or helping you to control over-eating.
Caffeine and Blood Pressure: Caffeine in coffee as well as in other drinks, such as tea and sodas, only raises blood pressure temporarily. So you should be able to continue to have drinks that contain caffeine, unless you are sensitive to it or have heart disease and your doctor tells you not to have any.
Eat adequate amounts of potassium-rich foods. Potassium, another mineral essential to good health, works in concert with sodium to regulate blood pressure. Studies have shown that people who consume more potassium have lower blood pressures than those who consume less. Rich sources of potassium include many fruits, such as cantaloupe, bananas, watermelon, oranges and orange juice, as well as potatoes, spinach, and zucchini. (Important note: if taking medication for high blood pressure, such as diuretics, consult a doctor before using salt substitutes that contain high amounts of potassium.
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High Blood Pressure Can Be Caused By Loneliness?
How Is Blood Pressure Affected?
When the University of Chicago studied a group of 229 men and women between the ages of 50 and 68 … they found something interesting. After eliminating all other factors, they found that those who lacked comradeship were more likely to have high blood pressure.
The blood pressure of the loneliest people in the study was 10 to 30 mm Hg higher than those who had companionship. Compared to this … losing 10 kg of excess body weight can reduce your blood pressure by 5 to 20 mm Hg … physical activity has been shown to lower it by 4 to 9 mm Hg.
This shows the importance of social relations in our lives. A big part of living a healthy life is enjoying good relationships with friends and family.
My research on naturally lowering blood pressure showed … spending joyful time with friends is good for your health. Laughing with your comrades … joking with your pals … enjoying a fun time with your family … these times relax you and counter high blood pressure.
More Loneliness and High Blood Pressure
As our population ages and more people are living alone … loneliness and high blood pressure are on the increase. The first of the baby boomer generation are hitting 60 this year … a large group of people will retire and move away from their circle of workplace friends. Family and friends move, get sick, pass away … more and more elderly are feeling loneliness.
As household sizes decrease … as the number of people living alone increases … the risk of loneliness increases — and with it, the risk of heart disease.
Social relationships need to be replenished … you need to find new friends.
How To Avoid Loneliness
Get involved. Joining volunteer work and social groups allows you to make new friends. Getting out and about … being active in your community … it’s not only good for exercise, but also for social contact. It’s a great way to build your comradeship.
Join volunteer activities in your community. Help out with groups keeping parks clean … join in area patrols … take part in local blood drives … work on a campaign. Doing something for your community not only makes you feel useful … it brings you into close contact with others.
Take college night courses, join hiking groups, go on a tour … all are great ways to meet interesting people. Have fun and share a laugh.
Be open to new friendships … avoid being a lone wolf … avoid high blood pressure. Take this one step to protect your heart, today.
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Controlling High Blood Pressure Is The Easiest Thing To Do
Controlling blood pressure is the easiest thing to do, provided you know the fundamentals. It has to do much with your eating and drinking habits.
Look into the mirror. Do not see only your face. Look at your entire figure. There lies your future. How long do you think your body can go on accepting all that you stuff in, without applying any thought, just because your taste-buds like it? Do you know that overweight people have a higher chance of suffering from a stroke? Do you check your weight at regular intervals?
When you saw the weighing machine marking a fat gain of 16 pounds within a period of two months, why did you simply ignore it? It should have shocked you into action. The least you can do is find out what your weight is now and what your weight should be!
You need to be careful about what you eat as it is directly and proportionately related to your blood pressure. I agree that ‘one has to be true to the salt,’ but this does not hold true for you. You have to cut down on your intake of salt drastically, before your doctor tells you – no more salt! Avoid salty, and fried food. Adopt a diet that is low in saturated fat.
Two local remedies well known, to control high blood pressure are butter milk and lemon. Take butter milk regularly. It is good for both – low as well as high blood pressure. Lemon peel is also equally effective in high blood pressure. A shredded lemon peel may be added to soups and stews or sprinkled over your salads.
And tell me, have you stopped drinking or are you still contemplating the decision? If you have already made that decision, then let me congratulate you. But, if you think that you can not do it all at once, reduce the intake of alcohol. Just take a drink a day. If you are already under the watchful care of your family doctor, please follow their instructions sincerely. Let there be no holidays for the medicine and please keep sufficient stock in advance. If your doctor has called you this Sunday for a check up, then make sure that you reach there this Sunday itself and not, the next Monday.
Also, the doctor must have given you certain indications about the schedule of exercise that is necessary for you, such as, morning walk, light stretching exercises or light aerobics. Follow the schedule strictly. Your doctor treats hundreds of patients like you everyday. He has more practical wisdom about high blood pressure, than you. Go as per his advice and understand his treatments.
Regular check up of blood pressure is a must. You need to have such an arrangement at your home. Charts of your regular checkups will help your doctor tremendously in treating you. Let all the members of your family, your wife, and your children go for the check up, along with you, even if they do not have this ailment.
If you are taking basic precautions like controlling your diet and doing proper exercises – keep aside all imaginary worries and live a normal, relaxed life!
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The Basic Facts of High Blood Pressure
The heart is a tough operating mechanism which moves blood around the body through a very advanced system called arteries and capillaries; the blood is then carried back to the heart by means of veins. Blood pressure is the thrust of this blood in the body pushing up against the inside walls of the arteries as the heart is pumping.
As the heart compresses it will drive this blood into the arteries which makes an increase in pressure. This increase in pressure is noted as systolic pressure.
When the heart decompresses and fills with blood, the pressure in the arteries then declines which is noted as the diastolic pressure. When the blood pressure is evaluated in the arm, it is both of these pressures which are evaluated.
Blood pressure is always applied as a systolic and diastolic pressure number, and is an important measurement. The measurements are always written one preceding or before the other number, such as 120/80 and always stated in millimeters of mercury (mmHg).
The systolic pressure is the 1st or top side number, and the diastolic pressure is the 2nd or lowermost number (for example, 120/80), so if your blood pressure is 120/80, it is translating to 120 over 80.
Blood pressure will have a wide range with a varity of people. For example, the top reading which is when the heart contracts (systolic) can change from 90 to 240 mmHg and the bottom pressure which is when the heart relaxes (diastolic) can often change from 40 to 160 mmHg.
Blood pressure can also vary significantly depending on what you are doing during the day. The lowest blood pressures usually happen when you are sleeping or if resting all the muscles. Standing for periods of time, or if you’re performing any form of exercise, any anxiety and problems, or nerviness can also create increases in blood pressure.
That means in one day the blood pressure could change by up to a 30 to 40 mmHg systolic reading with like changes in the diastolic pressure. This is why it’s so crucial to have the blood pressure taken under the same conditions each time.
For the bulk of the waking hours, the blood pressure remains about the same whether you are sitting or standing still, so ideally, the blood pressure should be 120/80 or lower when the body is rested.
If the blood pressure is steady and remains high at 140/90 or higher, this may indicate a disease called Hypertension which essentially means high blood pressure. When the blood pressure is high, the heart has to work more to get the blood through your arteries. These then take a beating from having the blood pressured into them, and the danger of a stroke, heart attack, or even kidney troubles then become that much of a greater risk.
High blood pressure is a serious disease because it has the heart working much harder. If the heart has to work harder for extended periods, it will become large. If the heart is slightly enlarged, it can and should still work alright, but if it becomes greatly enlarged it won’t work alright. High blood pressure can also cause damage to the arteries which can lead to arterial disease.
The higher the blood pressure is the more risk you have of acquiring heart disease and stroke. This means somebody with a blood pressure of 130/80 mmHg is at greater risk than someone with a blood pressure of 120/70 mmHg. And is the reason it is so important for all to lead a wholesome lifestyle to make sure their blood pressure is as low and as healthy as it can be.
If you put up with Hypertension, it can be treated. Modest cases of Hypertension can usually be treated through lifestyle changes such as the diet, or increasing the workout levels. Some find dropping weight is all that is needed to lower their high blood pressure.
Severe cases of Hypertension will need prescription medications such as diuretics and beta blockers. Diuretics aid the body in getting rid of any excess fluids and salt. But, from individual experience, keep course of the body’s potassium levels also. Beta blockers will lower the heart rate and the heart’s output of blood. These then lower the risk of developing heart and brain problems.
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Using Improper Size Blood Pressure Cuffs, May Prove A Big Mistake!
Blood Pressure has something to do with the personality of an individual. Obese personalities have a higher rate of blood pressure. Their suffering and style of hypertension is different from that of the ordinary people. Every medical practitioner tells you about this.
Often, fat people face the problem of blood pressure monitoring. Wrong sized blood pressure cuffs are used, and they naturally give the wrong reading. Even when the blood pressure of the obese people is normal, the readings tell a different story.
Using improper size cuffs, at times may prove to be critical mistake! Many medical practitioners are aware of the seriousness of this discrepancy and yet they ignore it. Take the case of a pregnant woman-if she were to carry on with the use of wrong-sized blood pressure cuffs, it is not only harmful for her but also for the child. (When wrong medication is done by wrong reading of blood pressure level.)
Accuracy of data is important in treating blood pressure- high or low! Medication and blood pressure level are importantly interrelated! The blood pressure cuff that is being used must be according to your condition of health, all factors considered! In case of the pregnant women, the concern for the baby is more!
It is you who are having blood pressure, therefore, you must possess the accurate knowledge about the cuff that you are going use. In a situation where larger cuffs are needed, and you use the smaller ones, the damage will be difficult to repair at a later time. For, the damage might have already occurred! As a blood pressure patient, you must be in constant touch with the blood pressure related matters, through some authentic journals, and you must keep a tab on the latest research on cuffs also. It is in your interest!
There are scientific reasons why a large-sized cuff is needed. Use a regular cuff on a fat person. It will artificially inflate the level of blood pressure in fat individuals. There won’t be meaning in further treatment, if the data before the medical practitioner is itself wrong! Cuff, when accepted and used as a measuring instrument of blood pressure, it should be a correct-sized tool.
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High Blood Pressure And Your Health
The American Heart Association reported that nearly one in three adults, or 65 million people had hypertension. Hypertension or high blood pressure is a common and treatable condition. You have high blood pressure if your blood pressure has a reading of 140 over 90 or higher (140/90mm Hg). Prehypertension is a reading of 120-139/80-89 mm Hg. The AHA reports 59 million adults have prehypertension. Sixty nine percent of people who have a heart attack and seventy seven percent of people who have a stroke have high blood pressure.
When you have hypertension there are no symptoms you can feel or see. The only way to tell is to have your blood pressure checked. In most cases, diet and lifestyle changes can help control mildly high blood pressure. But sometimes, your doctor will prescribe medication as well as lifestyle changes.
Here are some tips to help lower your blood pressure. Stop smoking, smoking narrows your blood vessels causing blood pressure to dramatically rise. You should also try to maintain a healthy weight. Eat fewer high fat foods and increase your physical activity. Exercise regularly, aerobic exercise tones your heart, blood vessels and muscles and helps keep your blood pressure low. Drink alcohol in moderation and limit your salt intake. A diet high in salt causes the body to retain water, which increases the volume of blood in circulation and increases the pressure in the arteries.
If you are required take blood pressure medication, take all the medication as prescribed. Try to take your pills close to the same time each day, and never skip a dose. If you have side effects or don’t believe your pressure is high, see your doctor about your concerns. Make sure you refill your prescriptions before they run out. Do not stop medication because your blood pressure is normal, chances are it’s is normal due to the medication.