High Blood Pressure; How to Control Blood Pressure Without Medication

Blood pressure is the force which your blood exerts against the walls of your arteries, while flowing through them. It measures the resistance against which the heart has to pump the blood out to the body.

A  blood pressure reading has two numbers as

● Systolic Pressure:

      or top number, which indicates the maximum pressure on the walls of  arteries when your heart beats to pump the blood out to body.

● Diastolic Pressure:

 or bottom number, which indicates the minimum pressure on the walls of arteries when your heart relaxes between two consecutive beats.

Normal Blood Pressure: 

As a general guideline given by American Heart Association, normal blood pressure ranges from 90/60 to 120/80. Blood pressure less than 90/60 is hypotension and blood pressure more than 120/80 is called high blood pressure.

High Blood Pressure: A 'Silent Killer'

A blood pressure consistently higher than 130/90 is regarded as hypertension. It makes your heart work more stronger than normal to pump the same amount of blood out to the body.

Hypertension is regarded as a "silent killer" as it causes life threatening damage to you very quietly even before any symptom appears.

A chronically high blood pressure, firstly, damages your blood vessels which leads to a number of life threatening complications including heart failure, kidney diseases, eye damage leading to blindness, and brain strokes and other health problems.

In this article we are looking at the changes we can make with ourselves to keep the blood pressure at its normal limit.

How to Lower Blood Pressure

Most of the people get worried of high blood pressure due to life long medication to be used once they are diagnosed with high blood pressure. But there are ways that can help prevent the development of or manage high blood pressure.

For slightly high blood pressures, lifestyle and dietary modifications are enough to get you back to the normal. Even for moderately high blood pressure, if you begin to modify your lifestyle and dietary habits, soon you will be able to manage your blood pressure without medications.

For severely high blood pressure, there is no chance without medication but even in this case, adapting to changes advised below increases the effectiveness of medication and lessens the daily required dose of medicine as well.

Lifestyle Modifications

Making positive lifestyle changes not only helps control mild to moderately high blood pressure but also increases the effectiveness of medicine in severe hypertension.

1. Lose Your Weight 

One of the most effective lifestyle changes you can make to control your blood pressure is by losing your weight. Overweight and Obesity are the major risk factors for high blood pressure.

Studies have shown that losing 20 pounds can greatly reduce blood pressure by 5 - 20 points in many overweight people.

Best indicator for appropriate weight is BMI (Body Mass Index). Try to keep your BMI in between 18.5 to 24.9. You can calculate your BMI here.

2. Exercise Regularly 

Exercise can help you prevent developing hypertension, or if you already have high blood pressure regular exercise will bring your blood pressure to normal levels.

A total 150 minutes per week of aerobic exercise is enough to keep you healthier and well. This makes 30 minutes exercise for 5 days a week. Exercising consistently can reduce your blood pressure by 5 - 8 mmHgand that's very good for your health.

Some aerobic exercises you may do to control high blood pressure include walking, jogging, swimming, cycling and dancing. You can also try high intensity interval training which includes alternating short periods of highly intense exercise followed by periods of lighter activity. But you must consult your GP prior to this.

3. Avoid Smoking

According to a study, smoking is a major risk factor for heart and blood diseases and quitting smoking can be the single most effective measure one can take for blood pressure management.

4. Avoid Alcohol

Alcohol damages your heart. Having more than two drinks daily affects your blood pressure. Studies have shown that moderate to high amounts of alcohol drinking causes elevated blood pressure.

Try avoiding alcohol at all. And if you drink you must not have more than two drinks a week.

5. Sleep Enough

Now only Sleeping isn't just enough to control high blood pressure, but one thing is for sure, Sleeping less can cause your blood pressure to be high at scale. So taking a good quality sleep for enough hours is a good thing for you.

Dietary Modifications 

Changing your diet habits is a very effective approach to control high blood pressure. Eating foods with low fats, salt and sugar and eating fresh vegetables and fruits has a positive impact on your blood pressure. Avoid eating fast food, canned soups, fried foods, salted snacks etc.

1. Cut off Sugar Supply

Studies have shown that high blood sugar levels directly correlate with high blood pressures and that sweet reduction is very effective in lowering the high blood pressure and preventing its complications.

2. Low Fat Intake

Using minimum oil, butter, shortenings is better as fats (specially trans-fats) are the major culprits as they get accumulated in the walls of arteries and reduce the lumen size of arteries available for blood to flow.

Trans-fats increase LDL 'the bad cholesterol' levels in your blood while lowering HDL 'the good cholesterol levels' and cause plaque formation in the walls of your arteries narrowing their lumen available for blood to flow through them. This leads to high blood pressure as well as other heart diseases.

So, lowering your daily fat intake can help you alot in preventing and controlling high blood pressure.

3. Controlled Sodium (Salt) Intake

Higher the amount of sodium in your body, more water it retains, building up more blood volume in your vessels thus increasing blood pressure. So it is better to reduce your salt intake to lower your blood pressure.

According to a study, 75% of salt intake of an adult is hidden salt intake via processed foods and only 25% salt intake is intentional. So keep this in mind too when buying any processed food.

4. High Pottasium Diet 

Potassium helps your kidney excrete more sodium out of the body, thus less water is retained. Additionally, potassium relaxes the muscles in the walls of arteries. Both these effects of potassium help lowering the high blood pressure.

Good Sources for potassium are potatoes, sweet potatoes, banana, tuna, fat free milk.

Stress Reduction 

Stress is also a main factor in development of high blood pressure. Higher the level of stress you face, higher the blood pressure is.

Avoiding or Reducing stress (either via eliminating the cause of stress or diverting your attention elsewhere) is an effective measure to lower the high blood pressure.

Here are some ideas to reduce stress in your life:
● Resolve all your conflicts with your spouse, friends and family.
● Spend more time with those whom you enjoy being with.
● Do some yoga or meditation daily.
● Make time for hobbies, interests and things you love doing.
● Learn to avoid Procrastination.
● Have good romance / sex regularly.
● Get enough mental as well as physical rest and sleep.
● Set an appointment with a psychiatrist if needed.