Natural Remedies To Lower Blood Pressure – It’s Easier Than You Think
February 17th, 2010
It’s no secret that natural remedies to lower blood pressure have many advantages over high blood pressure medication. If you’re on medication you probably already know about the side effects and you certainly know about the cost. Natural remedies have virtually only good side effects and if you can afford your grocery bill you can afford these remedies.
So how do you lower blood pressure naturally? What do home remedies do that medication doesn’t?
For starters, natural remedies focus on the root problem that created the high blood pressure condition in the first place. Modern medicine says the cause of hypertension is unknown. But we do know that certain lifestyle behaviors greatly contribute to the disease. Natural remedies attempt to correct those behaviors and reverse not only blood pressure, but some of the damage that may have already been done to your blood vessels.
Hypertension medication focuses on controlling the condition (rather than curing it) by blocking the body’s natural response to high blood pressure. That’s why you’ve probably heard of Alpha blockers, Beta blockers, Calcium Channel blockers and ACE Inhibitors. Put simply, pharmaceutical companies researched the reaction of the body to HBP, saw the negative results of those actions and created drugs to block those actions.
And if you’re on medication now you already know that one size doesn’t fit all. Each person’s response to the drugs will vary requiring a trial and error period involving different drugs at different dosages. This is when the side effects are likely to be the worse.
Natural remedies address three areas, diet, stress management and exercise.
These are the three lifestyle areas that probably caused your blood pressure problem in the first place. By changing them to healthy lifestyles, you not only stop further damage, you can actually reverse pressure and get back down to a normal reading.
Here’s a quick run down on the types of remedies that are involved in each of the three main lifestyle areas.
Goodbye MacDonalds!
Fats, fried food and salt are going to be replaced with fresh or quick frozen fruits and vegetables, lean white meat fish and poultry. You’re going to get more fiber in your diet. The food you’ll be eating will actually have nutrients in them unlike the processed foods you eat now. In short, your body will be eating a fuel it was designed to eat, not something that technology and convenience decided it should get.
Hello Sneakers
Your days of being a couch potato have to come to an end. Walking from the parking lot to your work (unless it’s a 30 minute walk) will no longer be considered exercise. Working out your heart and lungs is the fastest way to lower blood pressure, particularly diastolic pressure. In addition it helps out with the third area, stress. Hormones that are generated by stress that linger in your body are burned off by the exercise.
Train Your Brain
You are going to have to train your brain to view what you currently think of as stressors like work and relationships, as challenges instead of threats. If you can accomplish this, the brain will turn off the natural response to threats and lower pressure. Deep breathing exercises or simply having a strong social network can do wonders for relieving stress.
High blood pressure is a very serious condition. It kills over 50,000 each year and is a leading contributor to heart attack, stroke and kidney failure. If left alone it will only be a matter of time before it takes its toll on you. You can’t ignore this condition, and if you can’t handle, or don’t want to handle, the drugs, then focus on natural remedies to lower your blood pressure.
Categories: Natural Healing Remedies for High Blood Pressure
