How To Lower Blood Pressure

We have learned about blood pressure in the last post. In today's post, I am going to talk about what are the natural ways to lower blood pressure. People with high blood pressure do not really have to take medication and feel that they are doomed for the rest of their live. If their blood pressure is not excessively high, they can always use naturally using the methods below.

The first and most important thing that people with high blood pressure must really take control of is their diet. With your mouth saying that "I am going to reduce my blood pressure", while walloping a huge double cheese beef burger, one large triple cheese with bacon and chicken chunks pizza, six German beef sausages, washing them down with a double ice-cream root beer float isn't the way to take hold of your new diet regime at all! You must start by taking more fruits and vegetables in your meals. At least 50% of your daily food intake must come from plant family! As we all know fruits and vegetables like orange, grapes, berries, apple carrots, celery, broccoli and many more are high in fiber and rich in potassium which can help to clean your blood and reduce the sodium contain in blood that causes high blood pressure. They also contain anti-oxidant properties which contributes to the over well being of your cells in your body.

Eat your fruits and vegetables fresh. Do not overcooked it or add lots of oil and salt in your cooking. Stir fried vegetables are not as good as steam or lightly boiled ones due to the oil and salt content when stir fried. Most fruits are rich in vitamin C, B6, B12, and E which are found to help reduce blood pressure. Adding garlic into your diet can have the beneficial effect of lowering your cholesterol which contributes towards reducing your blood pressure too. Stop eating processed foods like canned food, sausages, frozen foods, ham, bacon, lunch meat etc. They are either trans-fats or high in sodium which contribute to your high blood pressure if consumed in an on-going basis.

Normally, people will complain that they will not get full if they only eat a vegetarian diet. Well, do not get disheartened by this, you can still have meat in your diet as long as they are not high fat or processed meat. Try to eat more fish and white meat like chicken. White meat contained less fat which are healthier that their dark (red) meat counterpart. Less fat means less cholesterol and less likely of suffering high blood pressure, as simple as that! Of course there is no harm eating some red-lean meat like beef and pork once a while. The idea is no excessive indulgent in it!

Okay, enough about food for this time. The other equation of lowering your blood pressure is to exercise. Exercise is the sure way to health as it will burn away your fat storage, let your body have more blood circulation and drain away your body toxin via sweating more. In other words it cleanses your system and thus making you healthier. Your body will produce more good cholesterol when exercise regularly and this helps to transport excess bad cholesterol away and thus takes away any risk of having high blood pressure due to narrowing of blood vessels by cholesterol. So walk your way to health my friend! And I mean it!

Other ways of lowering blood pressure is to quit smoking if you are a smoker. Smoking can develop hypertension, which is the scientific term for high blood pressure. So why smoke your way to health problem? There is nothing charming while puffing away a cigarette anyway. Try to substitute smoking by doing something else like chewing a baby carrot or celery as this proof to be a more effective way of quit smoking rather than just stop and do nothing to replace the old habit. If you are a heavy drinker, you are heading toward to high blood pressure grave as well. Do you know that you can still drink alcohol and reduce blood pressure? Studies have shown that drinking red wine, less than 2 glasses a day can actually helps to reduce your blood pressure. So why not try this habit instead!

About Blood Pressure

What is it about blood pressure that haunts people, especially adults in this 21th century? Many have heard news about people getting stroke and being paralyzed due to high blood pressure. Worse still, if that person is someone you know. Either they are your close friends or your siblings. Let's us first understand what blood pressure really is, what constitute a normal blood pressure and how it can change to affect our health and well being.

Blood pressure is the pressure exerted on our blood vessels wall when blood flows around our body. It has a maximum (systolic) and a minimum (diastolic) pressure as blood is pumped from our heart towards organs furthest away from our heart like our toes and fingers etc. A normal adult will have a blood pressure reading of 120/80 mm Hg. People with a blood pressure reading of 140/90 mm Hg or higher is said to have hypertension or high blood pressure in layman term and should seek medical attention from doctor immediately.

So what causes our blood pressure to increase from its normal level? There are a number of reasons why our blood pressure increases. It may be due to an unhealthy lifestyle of consuming too much carbohydrate and fatty foods with little or no exercise. Over time, cholesterol will build up in our blood vessel wall making it more difficult for blood to flow through. When our heart pump blood through a smaller vessel (due to the cholesterol blockage) a higher pressure will result. Similar to a water hose in our garden, when we accidentally step on the hose, the water at the other end will eject out in a more powerful manner due to a smaller opening for water to flow through as we step on it. Other reasons for change of blood pressure are, lack of sleep, emotional stress, consume too much alcohol or over eating, smoking and high physical activities.

Why do we need to seek doctor's medical attention if our blood pressure reaches 140/90 mm Hg and above? Well, let's illustrate using a balloon. When we pump air into the balloon, is will grow bigger and bigger until to a certain extend when the wall of the balloon cannot with stand the excess pressure of the air, it will burst open. The same goes with our blood vessels. It will burst open if our blood pressure is too high causing internal bleeding which may result in stroke or even death if too serious.

If we are just on the borderline of 140/90 mm Hg, we can reduce the reading by adopting a healthier lifestyle in the form of controlling our diet and doing more exercises on a regular basis. Whereas if our blood pressure is too high until in the hypertension zone of 140/90 mm Hg and above, doctor may prescribe us with some medication to control our blood pressure. However, we can always control our blood pressure using the "Natural" ways without the need of taking blood pressure controlling medicine. Essentially, these so-called blood pressure controlling medicines are in fact medicines which help to thin our blood by flushing away excess sodium and also to relax our blood vessel. We will discuss more on how to reduce high blood pressure "Naturally" in my next post.