Many people struggle with high blood pressure these days. This can have devastating effects such as an increased risk of a heart attack or stroke, kidney diseases, vision loss, and much more. Luckily there are a few things you can do to lower your blood pressure without the need to turn to medication, which can create more problems than they solve.
It all comes down to living a healthier, active lifestyle. Meaning incorporating more fruit and veggies into your diet and have a little less meat and dairy. Exercise more often and make sure you give your body the time to rest and heal.
#1 Change Your Diet
- Cut down your sodium intake. High sodium consumption raises blood pressure. Although your body needs sodium to work properly (less than 1200 mg a day), there is too much of it hiding in our Western diets. Make sure to read food labels and avoid processed or fast food as much as possible. Instead of adding salt to your dishes try herbs instead to put more flavor into your dishes.
- Eat more potassium-rich foods. Potassium helps your body to balance sodium levels and can lessen the effect of sodium on your blood pressure. Potassium-rich foods include bananas, spinach, white beans, sweet potato, avocado, papaya, mango, kiwi, pear, and plain unsweetened yogurt.
- Limit or eliminate alcohol. Limit your drinks with alcohol to twice a week or eliminate them altogether or save them for special occasions.
- Eliminate refined sugar and grains from your diet. Opt for heart-healthy whole grains and omega-3s instead. If you need to sweeten things up, use dates, bananas, cinnamon, raw honey or stevia.
- Lose weight. If you are overweight or obese then you should lose your excess weight through a healthy whole food diet. Those extra pounds cause stress on your body and joints, which can cause your blood pressure to go up.
If you are serious about detoxing, losing weight, and changing your lifestyle without feeling hungry and counting calories, CLICK HERE!
#2 Herbs Known To Reduce High Blood Pressure
Don’t be shy to add more of these to your daily diet instead of sodium or sugar.
- Garlic
- Basil
- Cinnamon
- Onions
- Oregano
- Cardamom
- Olives
- Hawthorn
#3 Get Your Beauty Sleep
While you sleep your blood pressure drops and your body starts to heal itself after 4 hours of sleep (REM sleep). So make sure to give your body enough time to finish its tasks. Aim for 7 to 8 hours.
#4 Move Your Body
If you are not used to exercising, built your way up to 5 times a week (30 to 60 minutes). Start with 30 minutes every other day.
ALSO READ: 20 Great and Fun Ways To Get You Moving During The Day
#5 Stop Smoking
Smoking contributes to a high blood pressure and many other cardiovascular diseases and cancer. It can be hard to get off the nicotine, seek help if needed.
As with many things concerning our health, eating a well-balanced, healthy diet and regular exercise are the key ingredients to heal your body from the inside out.
Thanks for reading. I hope this information was helpful. Until next time!
Amy Goodrich
Crazy cat lady, life and food lover, certified biologist, and holistic health coach.
Right here is the right blog for everyone who really wants to understand this topic.
You understand a whole lot its almost tough to argue with you (not
that I personally would want to…HaHa). You certainly put a new spin on a topic that has been written about for many years.
Great stuff, just excellent!
Thanks 😉
So are you soy free? Vegan or vegetarian? No oils no sugar? Whole wheat or gluten free? No salad dressing or homemade ? I’m interested in the articles you write about and want to lose weight and lower my blood pressure a healthy way so I’m trying to understand the entire concept of your health plan. Please respond.
Hi Melissa.
I eat according to the acid-base balance (find more info here: http://eatlove.live/alkaline-diet-benefits/)> I’m not a vegan or vegetarian, but most of our dishes are. We eat meat/FISH twice a week (some weeks even less). I’m completely soy free as it disrupted my hormones and caused calcifications in both breasts (http://eatlove.live/is-soy-bad-for-you/).
We don’t use refined sugar or refined grains, we always opt for whole foods. We use coconut oil for cooking (no hydrogenated vegetable oils).
Every few months we do a whole food veggie or fruit detox to clean our body from pollutants that enter our body through the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe. Just as acids, toxins can build-up in your body and your body creates fat cells to tuck them safely away. So this can be the reason people are not able to lose weight while they are on a strict diet.
We changed our lifestyle step by step towards the 20/80 acid-base balance and I reduced my weight, cholesterol and improved my heart rhythm disorder without the need of medication and without feeling restricted or hungry. And my hubby hasn’t had an MS flare-up for over 3 years since we changed our eating patterns.
If you are interested in losing weight and learning how to change your lifestyle, you can find my course here: http://thinforever.me/
Hope this helps!
Take care
Amy Goodrich
Love your website and enjoy reading your articles. Lately these old eyes are having a very hard time reading the print when it’s is grey or blue. Wish you would go back to all black on white which is so much easier to read. Even this comment prints in grey or whatever and it’s so hard to read. Please do us “old seniors” a favor and print in black. It would be so appreciated. Thank youl
Hi Carol! Thanks for reaching out. I’m happy to hear you are enjoying my website…. and I will go back to black for the bullet points for future articles if that makes your experience better. Is the body text ok for you? It’s a very dark grey, bullet points are indeed a bit too light. But for me it is the other way around… the black and white is a bit harsh for me and hurts my eyes after a while. I’ll see what I can do. Thanks for the feedback and have a great weekend!