Help! I Have Hypertension

Chances are that this health condition has sneaked up on you as you went about living a normal life. Maybe when the test results came in you could not believe that you actually suffer from hypertension, but the truth is that it is there and you need to deal with it. The good news is that you have caught it in time to do something about it before it leads to serious cardiac trouble.

So lets try and understand what high blood pressure is before we try to deal with it. Essentially it is a symptom of an imbalanced system. The trouble it can cause ranges from mild headaches, vomiting, visual impairment, blindness, convulsions, paralysis and to coma. None of which are desirable, so we must understand the factors which lead to high blood pressure.

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It is widely accepted that vegetarians do not suffer from high blood pressure as much as non-vegetarians do. Also being overweight, smoking, not exercising regularly, drinking too much coffee, and binging on alcohol, all increase you blood pressure. In some cases just reducing weight by about ten pounds or so has resulted in a reduction in blood pressure. It is a lifestyle disease, if you fix your bad habits and replace them with healthy ones, the high blood pressure will be past story.   

Naturally the first thing that a doctor will prescribe is a blood pressure lowering drug. Most likely you already are on one and it has been able to control the blood pressure to some degree. Don’t fool yourself. All that the drug has done is to disguise the symptoms. The problem is still very much there. In fact the drug might even add to the problem by increasing your levels of bad cholesterol. The situation will not magically go away till you take your health into your own hands and do something about it.

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The doctor has already given you a list of things that you should be doing and it might include things like changing your diet, reducing salt intake, reducing stress levels, exercising more and a whole lot of similar suggestions. How many of them are you implementing? Maybe you were regular in the first week and then the novelty wore off and you are back to the normal lifestyle which caused you this problem in the first place.

Now here’s a list of things that you can and should do. Try and implement them in a way that they become part of your lifestyle, not just an isolated effort that you make once and forget about.

With food, try and add fruits and vegetables to your diet. Banana is excellent as it has high potassium levels and is heart friendly. Celery contains oils that help lower blood pressure. Dark chocolate, when eaten in moderation, helps with cholesterol. These are some herbs that you should try and eat as often as possible as all of them have a healing and rejuvenating effect on the body. Cayenne Pepper, Hawthorn Berries, Garlic, Black Cohosh, Green Tea, Ginseng, Ginkgo, Horsegrass Tail, Mistletoe, Wild Yam, Bayberry, Hyssop, Bladder wrack, stinging nettle and Dong quai. Many of these are available as supplements in capsule form. Get them and use them.

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While you already know the health benefits of walking, swimming, cycling, and trekking there are a set of exercises that you can do indoors which are most beneficial in reducing blood pressure levels. If you can do some deep breathing exercises, yoga, and meditation you will be surprised at the instant results. They help in reducing stress by calming your mind and autonomous nervous system which in turn helps your blood pressure levels stay under control.
 
All the best in your lifestyle change!