Blood Pressure Bible

If you want to know about natural remedies for high blood pressure, you are reading the right stuff. These natural remedies offer many cost-effective ways to contain the disease often without any adverse side effects. Natural remedies for high blood pressure include a combination of drugs and a switchover to a healthy lifestyle. This combination almost gives you a guarantee to help you lower your blood pressure. Its only downside is that it takes time to show results.

Natural remedies for hypertension are largely known for their tendency to take longer to achieve desired results when compared to other medications. You need to be very patient to see results, if this is the path you have decided to take.
Garlic has long been used to cure hypertension with very positive results. However, you should consult your medical doctor before using it as a remedy to cure the pressure. One of the reasons why you should be careful when using garlic to treat pressure is that it can cause thinning of the blood.

Hawthorn supplements are also considered as effective natural remedy as they help reduce an individual’s diastolic pressure. Fish oil is another natural high blood pressure remedy. Docohexaenoic acid (DHA), an ingredient available in fish oil has been found to be effective for lowering high blood pressure.

Folic acid is also a great natural remedy that helps reduce hypertension. It has folate that reduces the levels of homocysteine in the body, which in turn helps in lowering high blood pressure. If you want to control the blood pressure, you need to restrain on consuming excess of salt. Try to maintain a balanced intake of sodium, magnesium and potassium.

Include more fruits and vegetables in your diet that have high potassium. These include cauliflower, cabbage, oranges, melons, grapefruit and banana. Also eat plenty of magnesium-rich foods such as soy, wheat, nuts, beans and rice.

Are you suffering from high blood pressure and looking for the most effective home remedies for the same? Read on to know about these options you have.

1. Fruits and Vegetables

These two foods are perhaps the most accessible ones to everyone. They can be found in the comfort of your own homes. So need not hassle yourself for getting them. Foods that have high levels of potassium and fiber are best to lower BP. This is why most physicians recommend these food items to people suffering from the ailment. Here are some food that have high amount of potassium and fiber
- Foods rich in potassium: Food items such as avocados, baked potatoes, bananas, beets, cantaloupes, dates, dried prunes, dry roasted peanuts, fresh pears, kiwis, lima beans, melons, orange juice, oranges, prune juice, spinach, tomatoes, unsalted peanuts, and winter squash.
- Foods rich in fiber: Almonds, artichokes, apples, breads, broccolis, black beans, brown rice, carrots, lentils, oatmeal, peas, pistachio nuts, raspberries, strawberries, sunflower seed kernels, sweet corns, turnip greens, and whole grains.

2. Food Seasonings

Food seasonings and spices can do more than just adding flavors to your meals. Many times we do not realize that the some food enhancers we consume are very beneficial for our heart. Everyday spices like garlic, ginger and onions have health benefits that can help you lower blood pressure. You can either have them raw or add them as flavoring to your meals.

3. Dairy Products

Dairy products are high in calcium and they are highly recommended in order to fight the consequences of high blood pressure. While all dairy products are generally beneficial to your health, the most notable products you should consume are low-fat yogurt and skim milk. These two products have great potential in reducing the effects of hypertension.

Most people think that hypertension or high blood pressure is associated more with overweight middle-age men. In most of the cases, common reasons for hypertension include- sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, excessive drinking and smoking. May be because of stereotyping, these lifestyle habits are not traditionally seen as women’s characteristic. However, times have changed and women are now just as at risk of developing high BP as men.

Hypertension in Women
It is common misconception that high blood pressure in women is because of their menstrual period. However, the fact is that just like in the case of men, lifestyle habits contribute to a woman developing hypertension.

Over the last few years, women’s lifestyles, has become more sedentary. A few years ago, a woman, who is now termed a “stay at home mommy”, would have had physically active lifestyle. This has changed gradually thanks to labor saving machines that have lifted so much of the physical burden of their shoulders. Previously, women would have walked or cycled to do the daily shopping; today, she drives to the supermarket once a week or even once a month. With online shopping, even this is gradually dying out.

Many working ladies have office based jobs that have become more deskbound with the introduction of Information Technology. Since the risks of a lady developing high BP are now largely the same as a man, women should take the following measures to reduce the risk:

- Have a healthy balanced diet. Healthy means, the diet should be low in fat and sodium and moderate in sugar
- Reduce the intake of coffee and sodas you drink. Drink about 2 liters of water each day instead
- Shed extra weight
- Have a physically active life. Join aerobic classes and indulge in brisk walking, cycling or swimming.
- Reduce intake of alcohol and quit smoking.
- Most importantly, learn to relax!

Hypertension is known as a ‘silent killer’. People who have it usually do not see any symptoms, but is there and it can be a life-long condition unless you control blood pressure levels. There are many convenient and practical options available that can help you reduce your blood pressure. This also includes the natural ways to control high blood pressure which are in control of a person suffering from the ailment. Keep in mind that prevention of hypertension, of any other ailment for that matter, is always better and easier than cure.

Start with managing your weight. Excess weight is always dangerous. More weight man more fat in your body and more fat means there is extra pressure on the arteries and veins that carry blood in the body. Get healthy by ensuring that your weight is appropriate for your height. The best way to do this is to exercise daily to help keep and maintain a fit physique.

Stress on a cardiovascular work-out at the gym for 30 minutes to maintain a healthy heart. Swimming or easy cycling for just 30 minutes is also enough. Regular and moderate physical activities have shown to help strengthen the heart. This enables heart to utilize oxygen more efficiently.

Another thing you need to avoid in order to keep pressure in control is to make sure that you do not overwork yourself. Take time and relax in between work hours. Use slow and deep-breathing exercises. This helps in expansion of the lungs and allows more oxygen to flow through the heart and other parts of the body. You can perform this breathing exercise for 5 minutes every morning when you wake up and in the evening before sleeping. Breathing exercise help you in reducing stress hormones in the body that significantly raise your blood pressure when on constantly high levels in the blood stream.

The symptoms of high blood pressure are so elusive that you might not even notice them. A mild headache or perhaps a light redness to the cheeks can be the signs of high blood pressure. It is easy to confuse them with the other things. Most people in fact do not find out that they have a problem until there is a catastrophic medical event.

Here are some risk-factors associated with high BP:

1) Blood Clots: The buildup of plaque in arteries can cause blood clots to be formed. These clots can cut off blood circulation or limit. These blood clots can also break free and wind up in several places that have life threatening consequences.

2) Heart Attack: Heart attack, also called as stroke, is the most common risk of high blood pressure. High blood pressure makes the heart work harder that can lead to heart failure. Should a blood clot block blood flow to the heart, it can result in a heart attack.

3) Loss of a Limb: As with the heart, a clot stops the blood flow. This can happen in arteries as well as in veins. The worst outcome of this is that your limb may die. You won’t be able to move that part of your body at all.

4) Kidney Disease: The kidneys are a very critical filtering organ. The blood in your body flows through it and unwanted stuff is filtered out, sent to the bladder and eliminated in the form or urine. When the blood pressure is high, the filters start to break down. Just like high blood pressure, kidney ailment is mostly silent until it reaches life threatening stage.

5) Strokes: Clot can also land in the brain. Even a tiny clot can have major impacts on the brain. Clots can burst vessels and cause bleeding on the brain.

If you are in search for ways to deal with hypertension, one of the best options you have is to drink tea. For many years, tea has been consumed not just for its aromatic properties and flavors but for its therapeutic qualities also. Tea is well-known for its medicinal capabilities and is widely used to fight against severe conditions such as hypertension, heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, etc.

Drinking tea is very useful for those who are suffering from harsh ailments like hypertension. Here are the advantages of drinking tea:

1. Daily consumption of tea helps reduce the risk of developing high BP and other serious ailments. This popular beverage possesses several healing qualities that were discovered by the ancient Chinese many centuries ago. It can help you cure or prevent almost any type of condition, especially hypertension and heart-related ailments.

2. This is a healthy, effective and affordable alternative to the medication. Many people take medicines to prevent the risk of hypertension; however, they do not realize that drinking tea is just as effective. People, who know the healing powers of tea, can save huge amounts of money on their medicinal bills.

3. Since it is a natural remedy, there are no side effects associated with it. On the other hand, medicines can have many side effects; some of them can be very dangerous at times. Since, tea is grown naturally there are not any negative results from consuming it.

4. Tea has no toxic or chemical elements that can harm body. It is naturally processed and fermented from tea leaves. You are always guaranteed of wellness whenever you drink tea. However, you have to be aware of some low-quality brands that use potentially dangerous contains in manufacturing tea, so make sure to get your tea from a trusted store.

Fighting high blood pressure naturally is an easy process once you understand what is involved in it. Unlike blood pressure medication, natural treatments focus more on curing the condition and not just controlling it. Natural treatments mainly focus on changing the lifestyle behaviors which caused the condition of high blood pressure in the first place.

Diet

Diet plays an important role in both causing and curing high blood pressure. The typical modern day diet is full of processed foods that are stuffed with sodium, trans fats, LDL (bad cholesterol). It really lacks in real nutrition. People today are feeding their bodies with food that their bodies are not designed to process. Bad diet results in stiff blood vessels, excessive oxidation that forms and leaves plaque along the walls of the blood vessels. This results in high BP and puts undue stress on the heart. To fight the effects of bad diet, you can increase intake of fresh or quick frozen foods. Vegetables and fruit are high in vitamins and minerals. They also have great attributes such as antioxidants and vasodilator properties.

Gym

Exercise is important in curing high BP. Exercising the heart, and rest of the body and getting a vigorous flow of blood through the arteries is an important part of lowering pressure in a natural way. In fact, this is considered as the fastest way to get your blood pressure to normal readings.

Just relax, say no to stress

Stress management is an important factor in controlling high blood pressure. You have to train your brain to manage the stress and deal with it in much positive way. Your brain communicates a different message to the body if it presumes a challenge rather than a threat. Have a close look at the things that stress you and see what you can do to improve the situation.

Stress plays very important role in emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing of an individual. People with higher stress levels are at danger of high blood pressure in the arteries. While medication can help to improve the blood pressure, some techniques such as yoga, relaxation and deep breathing, can help alleviate high BP due to the positive effects on the individual.

In addition to the regular practice of Yoga having a positive impact on reducing blood pressure, this can help reduce the risk factors of developing hypertension. One of the risk factors of heart attack or high BP is obesity. Regular Yoga exercise, and a Yogic lifestyle, can result in weight loss, which reduces the hypertension.

Pranayama, the practice of Yoga breathing techniques, for example, can help in relaxing a person that reduces the effects of stress on the body. This technique infuses more oxygen into the bloodstream. Deep breathing in turn contributes to a decrease in blood pressure.

Regular Yoga practice can contribute to deep states of calm and inner peace. When a person alternates between tightening and relaxing of the muscles, his body becomes in tune with the relaxed mental state. This practice helps people to focus away from worrying, get peace of mind and in turn lower the hypertension.

There are many yoga postures and movements that have positive impact on our body. Movements such as Sun Salutations have an energizing and relaxing effect on the body that decreases the effects of stress on the body, including high blood pressure. As a person focuses on the breathing, stress is released constructively. These yoga movements are recommended only during the morning hours for many reasons. As Yoga becomes a modern lifestyle, the practitioner is able to make healthy choices, thanks to an internal change that occurs within the mind.

There are many risk factors that contribute to high blood pressure. Some of these factors are controllable while some of them are not. Here are some of them:

Uncontrollable risk factors

• Age – Aging is inevitable and when people get older, the risk of developing high blood pressure risks also increases. In fact, high blood pressure is seen in men at early middle-age while women are more likely to develop it after menopause. With aging, the arteries get less flexible that in turn does not expand as easily.
• Heredity – High blood pressure can also be hereditary; hence, if your parents or close relatives have this problem, you have a higher risk of developing it as well.

Controllable Risk Factors

• Alcohol intake – People who drink are more prone to developing high blood pressure. If alcohol is consumed regularly, this can cause long term high BP that will need to be treated.
• Diabetes – Although diabetes is not curable fully, people with high sugar can always control their sugar levels. People, who do not control sugar levels in their blood, are at high risk of high blood pressure.
• High cholesterol – People with high cholesterol have higher risk for blockage of arteries. More cholesterol makes arteries smaller and less flexible. This can eventually cause a heart attack.
• High salt intake – Although this is not the case with all, many people have salt sensitive High BP. Salt makes your body retain fluids that in turn increases the blood pressure. To be on safer side, always have lesser salt intake to help lower the BP.
• Obesity – Obesity is more or less related to high cholesterol. Excess of cholesterol increases the pressure on the artery walls causing BP to rise.
• Stress – in today’s lifestyle, stress has become very prominent factor that causes high BP. It is important to find healthy ways to relax and promote a healthy heart.

High blood pressure is also called as hypertension and it is health condition in which the heart is overworked. A normal heart pumps and receives blood and this function goes on involuntarily, and systematically. However, when these functions go haywire, the individual gets a physical condition called as a pressure problem and high blood pressure, or hypertension is one of them.

In the people with high blood pressure, the heart keeps on pumping at a much higher and faster than normal pressure. This can result in destroying the elasticity of the arteries, the blood vessels that transport good blood to different parts in the body. These arteries can accommodate slightly more than their normal capacity. This characteristic is important as heart’s pumping activity varies. When the heart pumps out the blood, it travels with great speed and pressure through these blood vessels. This pressure is called as systolic pressure in medical terms. Usually, this should not be more than 120 mmHg. Once the heart is empty, it starts getting re-filled with blood.

When blood reaches the heart, arteries are relieved from the excessive pressure; this lower level of pressure is called as diastolic pressure. Since human heart is not a machine. Hence, if it were left for long in that state, then muscles would get exhausted, and ultimately give way. This is when people get strokes, i.e. heart attack. Because of this, it is necessary to bring down this pressure.

High blood pressure can be due to various factors like obesity, dehydration, stress, bad diet, improper breathing, lack of exercise, and other health conditions. If all these factors are taken care of then the effects of the disease could be reduced considerably; however, not entirely. Although medicines help in dealing with the condition, these factors may continue to rise frequently. This is why, people with high blood pressure need to control these external factors.