How To Lower Blood Pressure Naturally

Like many people, men and women, Caucasian, African, and Asian, I have high blood pressure.  Statistically in North America one in every three adults have pre-hypertension which is a condition that often leads to high blood pressure. Many people ignore it or don’t realize how important it is to be aware of your high blood pressure and to do something about it.

You can not assume your blood pressure is normal just because at one time it was. Many things can influence it and drive it up.  It’s very important to check it often.  The last thing you want to have to do is have the cardiologist check in intensive care because you had an aneurysm (which happened to me.)  The other interesting in a painful torturous way is that once you get blood pressure you almost always have it for your lifetime. It’s much easier and less expensive not to get it in the first place.

#1 Way To Lower Blood Pressure Naturally
Watch Your Weight To Lower Blood Pressure Naturally

A 10% reduction in weight will often naturally lower blood pressure. Lets face it. The heavier there are the harder your heart has to work which increases the flow of blood through your body which increases your blood pressure. How you choose to lose weight is completely up to you. Low Carb diets do work and will even reduce your cholesterol although they have fallen out of favor in recent years. A healthy eating plan will always include eating less calories than you burn in a day to lose weight and many will recommend that to lose blood pressure naturally you stay away from proteins and high fat items. From personal experience you also should try to eat as much natural food as possible. Processed foods are almost always very high in things you don’t want like sugar, saturated fats, Red Dye #5….

The second best way to lower your blood pressure naturally is through a program of regular exercise. One of the great tragedies of life is that as you get older that your late twenties your physical health is going to slowly decline as your body just takes a bit more oomph to do the same thing you effortless as a young adult. For someone in their 40s starting an exercise program can be challenging, but at some point you just have to get out there and do it to naturally lower blood pressure.

Starting out can be as simple as a basic exercise program by walking 30 minutes a day. Even this minor amount of exercise will reduce your blood pressure by several points. Even more effective is a program to increase your cardiovascular health through a jogging, a treadmill, or friendly sports like flag football, soccer, softball, or basketball.

One of the more effective types of exercise that can be done for people of any age is weight training. Especially as you get older, weight training with free weights or circuit training on machines increases your physical well being, stamina, and health. Weight training regimes have been scientifically linked to helping people live longer and getting more out of life.

There are few things finer in moderation to bring out the flavor of a meal than salt and pepper, but as a person trying to lower blood pressure naturally, I have to consider the impact of salt on my health.

Genetically salt causes your body to retain more water which can have a drastic impact on the blood vessels and circulatory system in general. Excessive salt increases water retention which essentially increases pressure on the blood vessel walls, which increases your blood pressure. So its a no no to over consume salt and it also has significant impact on our future dietary needs because of how processed food is made.

Salt is a preservative, increases the shelf life of foods, and also adds flavor. Choosing to go down a low salt, low sodium diet is often a choice to eat more raw foods like fruits and vegetables and less processed foods like the other 12 aisles in the grocery store!

I’ve always been a carnivore myself although I appreciate the leafy vegetables as much as the next carnivore. Choosing to lower blood pressure naturally means however that you have to make choices about what is and is not important to you and for me that means more produce and less processed foods. I also needed to consider and implement eating alternative protein sources like fish and tofu rather than steak. I like both so it was not to big of a change.