High blood pressure is a common health problem that affects so many people, especially as you get older. Around 1 in 3 people will have problems with high blood pressure at some point and it can be very dangerous. If you don’t manage your blood pressure properly, you have a higher risk of heart disease, so it’s vital that you find ways to reduce it if you can. If you have very high blood pressure, your doctor can prescribe medication to help you reduce it. But you don’t always have to take medication if you don’t want to because there are plenty of alternatives. By making simple changes to your lifestyle, you can lower your blood pressure to healthy levels and even avoid high blood pressure in the first place. These are some of the best natural ways to reduce your blood pressure.
Exercise Regularly
Everybody already knows that regular exercise is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, but if you have high blood pressure, it’s absolutely essential. When you exercise regularly, you give your heart a workout and the muscles get stronger. That means that your heart is more effective at pumping blood around your body, and so the pressure in your arteries is reduced. You don’t have to hit the gym for hours every single day to make a difference either. Even 75 minutes of vigorous exercise each week can significantly lower your blood pressure. If you don’t want to do intense exercise, things like walking for half an hour each day will also make a big difference. Doing more than 75 minutes of exercise a week will continue to make improvements to your blood pressure, so make sure that you stay as active as possible.
Reduce Stress
Stress is a big contributor to high blood pressure, which is not good news because so many of us live stressful lives. When you are trying to balance work and family life, it’s easy for your stress levels to go through the roof. But that will cause an increase in blood pressure, so it’s important that you find ways to beat stress. Exercise will help a lot because it’s a great way to blow off steam and improve your mood. Beyond that, you should look for things that help you to relax, whether it’s reading a book, watching your favorite TV show, or meditating. It doesn’t matter what you do and different things work for different people, but you need to find some way to beat stress if you want to lower your blood pressure.
Cut Back On Salt
A lot of people have a very high salt intake due to processed food, and that can increase your blood pressure a lot. If you are worried about your blood pressure, you need to cut back on salt wherever you can. The easiest way to do that is to cut out processed food and cook things from scratch with fresh ingredients instead. For example, you can make your own sauces instead of buying ones that come ready made in a jar because they will be packed full of salt. You should also try to use less salt when you season food and learn to use more spices instead. Your food will still have good flavor, but you won’t be eating as much salt.
Eat More Potassium
Potassium is a very important mineral that helps your body to process and remove sodium. But a lot of people have a diet that is high in sodium and low in potassium, which is not good for your heart. That’s why, as well as cutting back on sodium, you need to increase your potassium intake as much as possible. Luckily, there are plenty of foods that are rich in potassium so it shouldn’t be that hard to get more into your diet. Leafy green vegetables are a great source, as well as beans and fish. You should also try to drink cucumber juice on a regular basis because that is very high in potassium and has been shown to decrease blood pressure. When you remove the processed foods from your diet and replace them with fresh food, made with vegetables, you cut back on sodium and increase potassium at the same time, so it’s a very important change to make.
Cut Back On Added Sugar
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that added sugar can be linked to increased blood pressure. A lot of the processed foods that are high in sodium will also be high in sugar as well. The natural sugar that you find in fruit is ok, but you need to cut back on things with refined sugars in them. Drinking soda is one of the worst things that you can do for your blood pressure so if you have it on a regular basis, you should try to switch to water instead.
Drink Less Alcohol
It’s no secret that alcohol is bad for your health. It has so many calories in it so if you are drinking regularly, it is very hard to maintain a healthy weight. There are also more long term health problems like mental health issues and addiction. But a lot of people don’t realize that it also increases your blood pressure quite a lot and it has been linked to around 16 percent of high blood pressure cases around the world. A lot of people get the wrong idea because there is some evidence to suggest that moderate amounts of alcohol can be good for the heart. But that doesn’t mean that you can drink as much as you like and not worry about heart health because it doesn’t work like that. Most health guidelines state that you should only have one or two drinks per day at most, but even that could be too much if you have high blood pressure. If you are a regular drinker, you should try to cut back and you will see a big improvement in your blood pressure.
There are a lot of different ways that you can reduce your blood pressure without medication, but the best thing that you can do is cut out processed foods because this will reduce sodium and sugar levels and help to increase potassium intake.
