High blood pressure is a widespread condition that increases your risk for heart disease, stroke and kidney damage. By making lifestyle changes such as eating healthier food, being more physically active, quitting smoking and decreasing stress levels, it may help bring down blood pressure levels.
Leafy greens such as kale and spinach contain natural nitrates which can help naturally reduce blood pressure. Add them to soups or sautee them as side dishes for optimal results.
1. Exercise
Research suggests that engaging in 2.5 hours of moderate exercise each week can lower blood pressure. Physical activity also improves mood and strength while decreasing your risk for heart disease.
If you work at a desk job, try taking short movement breaks every hour or two in order to stretch your legs and arms and help prevent “stress inactivity”, which has been linked with high blood pressure.
Add leafy greens, tomatoes and beans to your diet as sources of potassium to lower high blood pressure. Bananas and kiwis can also provide additional sources of this mineral that helps rid your body of excess sodium through urine output.
2. Eat a Healthy Diet
Diet has a direct influence on blood pressure levels, so aim for an overall healthy eating pattern. Leafy greens, beans and low-fat dairy contain nutrients which help lower and regulate your blood pressure, says Laffin.
Avoid foods high in sodium to reduce its impact. One effective strategy for doing so is cooking at home and substituting herbs and spices instead of salt when creating recipes; rinsing canned food before eating it; and swapping in potassium-rich fruits like bananas or kiwi fruit as snacks.
Before taking any new supplements for treating hypertension, speak to your physician. Some ingredients could interfere with medications you’re currently taking or pose risks if you have certain medical conditions.
3. Reduce Stress
Rush-hour traffic or marital tensions can quickly send blood pressure soaring, thanks to hormones like cortisol and adrenaline which stimulate heart rate and narrow the vessels, increasing your heartbeat rate and making blood vessels constrict further. While such reactions are normal responses, chronic emotional stress could contribute to high blood pressure by damaging arteries over time.
Regular exercise can be one of the best ways to alleviate stress levels, and has also been shown to lower blood pressure. Exercise such as walking strengthens your heart so it doesn’t have to work as hard to pump blood around the body.
Other ways of relieving stress include breathing exercises, meditation, yoga and tai chi. Eating foods high in magnesium and potassium like pistachios could also be useful; another good choice would be drinking green tea with honey or eating whole grain foods like oatmeal.
4. Sleep Well
High blood pressure is a serious health problem that can lead to heart disease, kidney damage and other serious ailments. Luckily, it can be effectively treated using diet and exercise alone.
Apart from eating healthily, drinking less alcohol, and relieving stress, sleep is also an integral component of blood pressure reduction. Research indicates that lack of sleep leads to greater spikes in blood pressure during the night which can have long-term impacts on cardiovascular health.
Sleep plays an integral role in managing blood pressure by helping regulate hormones such as cortisol that elevate blood pressure. By following the tips above and choosing a mattress suitable to support your natural sleep cycle, you can easily improve your quality of restful slumber.
5. Reduce Alcohol Consumption
Alcohol’s empty calories contribute to weight gain and raised blood pressure, and binge drinking causes a temporary spike in both.
If you are an infrequent or heavy drinker, cutting back to moderate drinking (one drink for women and two for men per day) could decrease your systolic pressure by 5.5 mmHg and diastolic pressure by 4 mmHg in blood pressure readings.
Alcohol may interfere with certain cardiovascular medications and render them less effective, making it important to limit alcohol when taking medication for high blood pressure. Speak with your physician about what amount is safe and when to drink. They can provide strategies for decreasing consumption such as replacing alcohol with nonalcoholic beverages.