We need to maintain our blood pressure between 90/60mmHg and 120/80mmHg to lower the risk of cardiovascular diseases, mental damage, kidney problems, and visual impairment. However, before taking the pill, you can bring blood pressure down naturally by losing weight, pursuing a healthy diet, limiting alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine, and managing stress and sleeping regularly. Therefore, one can conclude that doing these practices will bring down blood pressure without the need for medication.
Lose Weight
The first way to decrease blood pressure without taking pills is by losing weight. In particular, you should aim to maintain healthy body weight by exercising and eating healthy. Hypertension and being overweight are correlated, so you should keep the ideal weight for your height and age.
The higher your weight is, the higher your blood pressure will rise. Maintaining a healthy body weight keeps your blood pressure within the recommended range. Studies have shown that losing weight will lower both systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
Various studies have shown a positive relationship between body weight and blood pressure. Obese people who underwent weight loss experience would decrease blood pressure. Simultaneously, people who are overweight are more likely to experience hypertension.
How to lose weight?
Exercise regularly
Along with a healthy diet, losing weight will only be possible if you have an active lifestyle. Even if you’re not a beginner, it’s essential to exercise without feeling pressured or overwhelmed, so researching beforehand will prepare you.
Depending on your chosen exercise or equipment, you can burn calories to keep your weight in check. But, first, understand that you can burn calories even if it’s just walking at a moderate pace or using weight training equipment. With the latter, you also increase your metabolic rate, so your body continues to burn calories even after exercising.
Cardio, weight and strength training, aerobic exercises, and high-intensity interval training are among the most common ways to get active to shed pounds. Because they are effective in burning calories, you can choose which physical activity matches your ability. However, don’t overwhelm yourself by immediately choosing something at the end of the difficulty scale to avoid getting discouraged or injured.
Pursue A Healthy Diet
Pursuing a healthy diet will naturally bring blood pressure because it plays a factor in maintaining the ideal body weight. More so, a healthy diet means consuming food items packed with nutrients and components that directly affect lowering blood pressure.
To pursue a healthy diet, you must monitor what you eat every day. Start with how many calories you’re having daily and ensure that you burn them. At the same time, reduce the consumption of foods that are high in sodium, and dedicate your meals to different fruits and vegetables instead.
What to eat to lower blood pressure naturally?
Green leafy vegetables, garlic, tomatoes, beets, berries, cantaloupes, and nuts can lower blood pressure naturally. This is because they are rich in compounds that directly affect the body’s blood pressure. They will also help with weight maintenance, which plays a role in blood pressure.
Eating fresh produce composed of various fruits and vegetables will naturally lower your blood pressure. They will help you stay feeling full, making it less likely for you to crave unhealthy foods. You want to enrich your diet with vegetables rich in potassium because it directly helps the kidneys excrete sodium through urine.
Green leafy vegetables
Green leafy vegetables like kale, spinach, romaine lettuce, arugula, collard greens, turnip greens, and Swiss chard are excellent sources of potassium. They will lower your blood pressure and are full of nutrients that protect the cardiovascular system. Eating them every day is ideal, so grow the crops yourself in a greenhouse.
Garlic
Garlic is a popular remedy for lowering blood pressure. It’s effective because of its allicin content that creates different mechanisms in the body. According to studies, it increases nitric oxide, decreases vasoconstriction, and hyperpolarizes vascular smooth muscle cells.
Tomatoes
Another easy greenhouse crop that your blood pressure can benefit from is the tomato. Tomatoes are rich in lycopene that is advantageous for cardiovascular health. Lycopene can even reduce the
blood pressure of patients with moderate hypertension.
Beets
Eating fresh produce such as beets will lower blood pressure because it is high in nitrates. Nitric oxide affects blood pressure because it opens the blood vessels. In turn, this vasodilation will help ease hypertension.
Berries
Eating fruits instead of high-sugar and processed foods will help you lose weight. However, fruits like berries and cantaloupes are also beneficial for hypertension. Berries are a good source of flavonoids that help decrease the rate of hypertension.
Cantaloupes
Cantaloupes are rich in heart-loving nutrients such as vitamin C, choline, fiber, and potassium. Eating foods rich in these nutrients will help the body undergo processes that will reduce blood pressure. And because vitamin C acts as a diuretic, your body will also have an easier time excreting fluids.
Nuts
A healthy snack that you can try and benefit your blood pressure is nuts. Studies concluded that the consumption of nuts significantly reduces blood pressure. They include peanuts, almonds, and pistachios, which are also good magnesium sources that further help with vascular health.
What foods to avoid with high blood pressure?
Reduce sodium intake
Sodium directly affects your blood pressure, and reducing your intake of sodium will naturally lower your blood pressure. The relation between the two is that your kidney won’t be as effective in removing water. Therefore, the blood vessels will have to work harder, leading to high blood pressure.
To reduce sodium intake, stop eating processed foods because they are higher in salt. This way, you can maintain 1,500 to 2,300 mg of sodium a day in your diet. Instead, stick to fresh goods and check the labels to know how much sodium there is in what you eat.
You can also replace the ingredients in your meal with low-sodium versions of them. For example, use herbs and spices instead of salt when cooking. You can also skip the chips, canned foods, and desserts and opt for fruits and vegetables instead.
What other foods should you eat less?
Fatty foods such as bacon, butter, margarine, and fried dishes are sources of saturated fat. This will elevate your cholesterol level, putting you at risk for cardiovascular diseases. People who already have high blood pressure should avoid or eat these foods in moderation.
Besides sodium and saturated fat, diets high in sugar can cause complications in blood pressure. In addition, they play a significant role in weight gain, leading to obesity and other conditions. So aim only to have six teaspoons of sugar per day.
Limit Alcohol, Nicotine, and Caffeine
An active lifestyle and a healthy diet consisting of fresh fruits and vegetables will help reduce blood pressure. However, some habits like drinking alcohol, smoking, and drinking caffeine also affect blood pressure. Therefore, limit your next intake to bring your blood pressure naturally.
Alcohol effects on blood pressure
Alcohol is a factor in the body’s blood pressure, and drinking too much can raise it to unhealthy levels. It’s best to limit your intake to up to two drinks per day only. Binge drinking every day can cause long-term hypertension because of its effects on the arteries.
Another reason why alcohol affects blood pressure is that it affects weight gain. Alcoholic drinks are full of excess sugars and calories, increasing body fat and leading to a poor diet. In addition, it affects the lifestyle of heavy drinkers, which makes it harder to stay active and eat healthily.
Nicotine effects on blood pressure
Another vice that affects blood pressure unhealthily is the habit of smoking. This is because of the nicotine content that narrows the arteries, increases heart rate, blood flow, and blood pressure. At the same time, cigarette smoking promotes unhealthy habits in diet and exercise that will make it harder for the person to lower their blood pressure.
When you smoke, nicotine is not the only factor increasing blood pressure. You’ll also be inhaling carbon monoxide that can cause the arteries to harden. This leads to a higher risk of other cardiovascular diseases.
Caffeine effects on blood pressure
The palpitation we feel when drinking caffeinated drinks indicates their effect on blood pressure. This increase might seem short-term, but caffeine’s regular consumption will lead to higher blood pressure in general. Different studies showed that caffeine might cause high blood pressure, and researchers considered it due to vasoconstriction.
While long-time coffee drinkers won’t experience a significant rise in their blood pressure, this drink can indirectly affect the body. Even without caffeine, you might enjoy your coffee more with high amounts of creamer and sugar. However, these ingredients won’t help maintain a healthy weight, which means you can be at risk for hypertension if other conditions are met.
Manage Stress And Sleep Regularly
After losing weight, pursuing a healthy diet, limiting alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine, the following natural way to decrease blood pressure is by managing stress and sleeping regularly. Unfortunately, we often overlook these daily habits, but monitoring them also correlates to our blood pressure. Therefore, stress and sleep are two factors to consider to pursue a healthy blood pressure rate.
How stress affects blood pressure
Stress affects blood pressure because of your body’s hormones in stressful situations. Even if it’s just short-term stress, studies have shown that it can still impact your body long-term. Therefore, we can’t neglect the proper management of stress.
The reactions and coping mechanisms in stressful situations can also raise blood pressure. They include binge eating unhealthy foods and vices like smoking and drinking. When you’re stressed, you’re also prone to developing conditions like depression, which puts you at a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases.
How sleep affects blood pressure
The amount of sleep you are regularly getting plays a role in your blood pressure. For example, lack of sleep can lead to high blood pressure because of the stress hormones in your body. At the same time, your blood pressure rises if you have poor sleep quality.
It would help to get 7 to 9 hours of sleep every day. This will give you enough rest to avoid stress and lower the risk of hypertension. However, besides sleeping too short, sleeping for too long can also affect our blood pressure.
Bottom Line
You don’t always rely on medications to lower your blood pressure. Instead, you can maintain it at a healthy rate by natural means such as losing weight, pursuing a healthy diet, limiting alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine, and managing stress and sleeping regularly. Incorporating these habits in daily life will let you manage your blood pressure levels and prevent other diseases from developing.
You can maintain the ideal body weight and lower the risk of developing hypertension by exercising regularly. It’s also essential that your diet consists of various fresh fruits and vegetables to provide nutrients like potassium, allicin, lycopene, nitrates, flavonoids, choline, fiber, vitamin C, and magnesium to regulate the blood pressure. Regular consumption of alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine are all factors that elevate blood pressure, so moderation is the only option for good health.
Lastly, poor stress management and sleeping irregularly are practices that affect the hormones. They will also promote unhealthy coping mechanisms that make it harder for the body to decrease blood pressure. Overall, our lifestyle can dictate a healthy blood pressure rate, and natural practices like these can lower your rate.