Natural Remedies For High Blood Pressure
High blood pressure is commonly treated with a range of different drugs and the drugs chosen will depend very much on the cause of your hypertension and your general health. When we talk about finding natural remedies for high blood pressure therefore we are often talking about curing a combination of problems.
This said, here we are going to look at a number of high blood pressure remedies that can not only help cure high blood pressure but which will also help to improve your overall health.
- Monitor your blood pressure. Whatever steps you take to find a natural hypertension cure the first thing you need to do is to find out exactly what your blood pressure is at the moment and then to monitor it on a regular basis so that you can gauge the progress you are making.
Although you can of course visit your doctor's office to have your blood pressure measured, nowadays it is much easier to simply monitor your pressure yourself at home and there are many excellent home blood pressure monitors available.
- Check you weight. Weight and blood pressure tend to move together and as your weight rises so does your blood pressure.
In particular blood pressure starts to rise markedly once your BMI passes 30. Start therefore by weighing yourself and, if necessary, set your target to lose any extra pounds.
Weight loss is most successful if it is slow but steady and you should aim to lose no more than a pound or two each week.
- Set yourself some diet rules. Eating the right food is essential if you are to lose any excess weight and also control such things as your salt intake, both of which directly affect your blood pressure.
A good rule of thumb is to follow a diet which is specifically aimed at hypertension, such as the DASH diet for high blood pressure, and also understand how salt and high blood pressure are connected so that you can reduce your intake of salt to less than the recommended daily intake of 2,400 milligrams (mg).
- Consider adding herbs to your diet. There is a range of herbs for high blood pressure and adding these herbs into your diet can not only help to lower your blood pressure but can also provide you with wider variety in your meals and replace the flavoring you are perhaps
accustomed to through the use of salt.
- Set yourself some exercise targets. Activity is extremely important in any plan to reduce your hypertension and you should ensure that you understand the connection between high blood pressure and exercise and draw up a daily exercise program.
- Watch your alcohol intake. Although it is not necessary to cut out drinking altogether, excess alcohol consumption will raise your blood pressure and you should cut down your alcohol consumption to just the occasional drink perhaps once or twice a week.
- Stop smoking. It would be nice to simply say that all you need to do is to cut down on your smoking a bit but, unfortunately, cutting down is not easy to do and really won't make any significant difference. The only real solution here is to quit altogether.
Quitting smoking is not easy and can certainly be very difficult if you have smoked for any length of time. There are however some excellent aids available today including a couple of treatments using tablets, which your doctor can prescribe, that are proving extremely successful even with the 40 a day 20 year smokers.
Each of these steps alone can help considerably in reducing your blood pressure but, when used in combination, they are not only extremely effective in solving the problem of high blood pressure but will also lead to a marked improvement in your general health.
Carotid artery: An artery within the neck which supplies blood to the brain.
Hypertensive emergency: A severe elevation in blood pressure which can lead to organ damage, including encephalopathy (brain damage), heart attack, heart failure, hemorrhagic stroke (bleeding into the brain), eclampsia (a condition in which pregnant women have water retention, hypertension, protein in the urine, and seizures), and arterial bleeding.
Sphygmomanometer: A device which is used to measure blood pressure. The sphygmomanometer consists of an arm cuff, dial, pump, and valve.
|
