To learn what to do about high blood pressure, the first thing that you should do is speak to your doctor. There is no single, fastest way to lower blood pressure.
There are many aspects of treatment, including prescription medication, that you’ll need to discuss.
Get Help From Your Physician
Talk to your doctor about how to lower blood pressure. You may have been diagnosed after exhibiting high blood pressure signs, such as a severe headache or blood in your urine.
Once diagnosed, take your medication regularly. Report any side effects that you may experience. Left untreated, hypertension can damage your body. Once you learn which foods lower blood pressure, like low-sodium foods, stick to those.
Manage Your Work Environment
High blood pressure is often considered as an illness that can be made worse by your lifestyle. If you work in stressful conditions, your risk of having your pressure go higher temporarily is much higher than that for someone who works in a sector that is more relaxing.
If you’ve talked to your doctor about how to lower blood pressure naturally, they’re likely to have emphasized stress reduction. Working in a stressful office or factory can cause your blood pressure to go up temporarily. If you are already on medication to reduce your blood pressure, constantly exposing yourself to a stressful environment that pushes your pressure up is not good for you.
If you know that your job is extremely stressful, consider taking these measures:
- Visualizing a peaceful setting in the midst of a high-conflict meeting
- Playing soothing music at low volume in reception rooms and other high-traffic areas
- Using time management tools to manage work tasks
- Asking for help or mentoring
Manage Home Stress Well
If your risk of developing hypertension is high, you should take steps above the norm to manage stress effectively. Genetics have a role to play and your risk is higher if both of your parents have the condition.
Even if other family members have hypertension, you can take steps to protect your heart, such as:
- Getting adequate, quality sleep
- Doing daily devotions
- Stretching at intervals during the day
- Having regular family problem-solving sessions to prevent issues from festering
Be Cautious with Your Food
What you choose to eat and drink can elevate your blood pressure. Low-sodium foods are better for you than salty snacks and other high-sodium foods.
Adjusting to using less salt in your food allows you to enjoy the rich taste of vegetables and other ingredients more. Add more natural spices to your food, such as thyme, chili and others that you prefer.
Consider:
- Removing the salt shaker from your table
- Reducing the amount of pepperoni and other high-sodium processed foods that you eat
- Being careful with some legumes that are high in sodium
- Watching out for hidden sources of sodium, like over-the-counter medications
Be Careful About Drinking
Doing without wine or beer is one of the ways to lower blood pressure. You should avoid alcohol as much as you can, since just one drink is known to cause an acute increase in blood pressure.
If you think you may use alcohol more often than you would like, consider:
- Establishing specific drinking goals
- Reducing the number of days per week in which you drink
- Asking friends for their support through not drinking in front of you
- Making alcohol less accessible to you
Lose Weight
Your heart has to pump blood around the body. When you gain excess weight, it has to work harder. As you gain more excess weight, your blood pressure goes up. It’s almost like a person pushing a heavier and heavier load up a hill.
Your heart works hard and it’s designed to adjust to additional loads temporarily but you have to be careful about the amount of load it has to contend with. Even if you’re on blood pressure medication, if you’re clinically obese, you should talk to your doctor about lifestyle changes that will help you get to a weight that places less pressure on your heart.
If you’re living with hypertension, getting to and maintaining your ideal weight will benefit you by decreasing your blood pressure. This can be thought of as a natural remedy for high blood pressure. You’re likely to see a measurable drop even after losing just 10 pounds.
Stop Smoking
If you’ve been smoking for a while, you already may have noticed its detrimental effects on your health. Maybe it has become harder to climb a few flights of stairs or you’re showing signs of aging that you don’t like and shouldn’t display at your age.
Good hypertension control is difficult to achieve if you’re putting nicotine in your body right through the day. Nicotine both raises your blood pressure and increases your heart rate. It narrows your arteries as well, so imagine your blood cells as cars trying to pass along roads that are becoming more and more narrow.
Nicotine hardens the walls of your arteries. It also makes it more difficult for your blood to clot. That means you may bleed more than necessary if you’re bruised. You can reverse or stop the damage to your heart, lungs and looks by quitting nicotine altogether.
Monitor Your Blood Pressure
Monitoring blood pressure at home, work and while participating in any of your regular activities is important. It provides you with information on what is working well to reduce your blood pressure and what may actually be causing it to go up at different points throughout your day.
You’ll become more aware of how things like your posture affect your pressure. You’ll see for yourself that spending relaxing quality time with your children or your friends actually helps your blood pressure drop to ideal levels.
There are several digital tools that make monitoring easy. These can be used along with good habits and medication to experience positive results in your life over time. This is not an overnight battle but you can do things now that have a positive effect on how you feel tomorrow.
By Admin –
