Lowering blood pressure by following simple lifestyle changes such as:
maintaining a healthy weight,
eating the right diet,
increase physical activity (blood pressure exercise),
reducing salt intake (replace with potassium salt),
quit smoking and
limit alcohol.
Only about half (54%) of people with high blood pressure have their condition under control.
How do you lower blood pressure without medication?
Most of the people with high blood pressure can control their blood pressure by following a few healthy lifestyle changes. If your blood pressure is not controllable with a lifestyle change, then you may need hypertension medication. Take medication for some time until the pressure reaches normal healthy blood pressure range. After that slowly reduce your medication dosage, once the BP stabilizes, then you can quit hypertension medication and continue following this lifestyle.
12 Lifestyle Changes to Lower your Blood Pressure
Everyone who diagnosed as hypertension should healthily modify their lifestyle. The hypertensive patient should adhere to a healthy lifestyle; it supports the medication to work effectively as well as help lower your risk towards hypertension complications.
- Eat real food - Processed and packed foods are full of refined carbohydrates, sugar, fructose, Tran’s fat, and other chemical ingredients. These unhealthy ingredients affect your health; one among them is hypertension. Organic, unrefined, and whole foods are real food. Eat more fruits, vegetables, nuts, butter or ghee, grass-fed organic milk, and organic egg. Increase NO3-rich veggies (which raise your NO level) are beets, kale, celery, spinach, and carrots. Visit a hypertension diet for more details.
- Limit Carbohydrates - Scientific research published in the journal, Diabetes reported that two-thirds of the insulin-resistant individuals also had high blood pressure. That is as your insulin level increases, so do your blood pressure. Additionally, insulin resistance hinders the magnesium storage and passes out through urination, shortage of magnesium to relax the muscles, and so raises your blood pressure. Insulin resistance is directly attributable to high sugar, high grain diet, especially if accompanied by inadequate exercise. Thus it is better to replace refined sugar with raw sugar and refined flour with whole-grain flour.
- Stop fructose - Fructose typically elevates uric acid within minutes of ingestion, it inhibits nitric oxide that helps your blood vessels to maintain their elasticity. So NO suppression leads to increases in blood pressure. Stop every food item that contains fructose corn syrup.
- Maintain sodium to potassium ratio - Imbalance in the potassium to sodium ratio can lead to hypertension. It increases the levels of potassium blunt the adverse effects of sodium. Thus adding potassium can help lower your blood pressure. Potassium-rich foods are beans, dark leafy greens, potatoes, squash, yogurt, fish, avocados, mushrooms, and bananas. Visit hypertension salt for more details.
- Optimize your gut microbe - The best way to optimize your gut flora is by adding fermented foods to your diets such as sauerkraut, yogurt, kefir, cheese, and natto. Fermented foods also an essential source of vitamin K2 plays a vital role in protecting your heart and brain.
- Optimize vitamin D - Vitamin D deficiency is a highly prevalent condition worldwide. Vitamin D deficiency causes inappropriate activation of the renin-angiotensin system that leads to hypertension. Optimizing vitamin D can lower your blood pressure. You can get it free by exposing your skin to the sun, preferably the rising sun in the morning. If you prefer to get it as a supplement, then consider taking a vitamin D3.
- Exercises – Do 30 to 60 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise for four to seven days per week? Visit hypertension exercise for more details.
- Weight loss - Try to achieve or maintain healthy body weight (BMI 18.5-24.9 kg/m2). Maintain healthy waist circumference (Men below 102 cm and Women below 88 cm). Visit hypertension weight loss for more details.
- Stress management – It is well known and accepted the fact that stress elevates your blood pressure. In the case of many hypertension patients, stress is an essential contributing factor for elevation in blood pressure. So managing your stress is necessary to lower your blood pressure as well as improve your overall health, specifically heart health. Yoga, meditation, Tai chi, and enjoying music are some easy stress-busting relaxation techniques help better management of hypertension. Visit hypertension stress management for more details.
- Omega 3 - Clinical evidence suggests the two omega-3 fatty acids EPA & DHA found in fish oil reduce high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Good options include eating wild-caught Alaskan salmon, sardines, and anchovies. Alternatively, take supplements such as high-quality krill oil, fish oil, or algae oil (a vegetarian source of Omega-3).
- No Tobacco - Stop tobacco usage in any form as well as maintain the tobacco-free environment. Visit hypertension smoking for more details.
- Limit Alcohol - Your alcohol consumption should not be more than two standard drinks per day or 14 drinks per week for men (or nine drinks per week for women or lean person). Limit alcohol consumption, too much of alcohol can raise your blood pressure. On the other hand, stop or limiting alcohol can help lower your blood pressure. Visit hypertension alcohol for more details.