Tips For Managing Blood Pressure

High blood pressure also known as hypertension do not exhibit any symptoms, thus it is many times referred as a ‘silent killer’. Hypertension simply means that your heart is exerting extra pressure to pump the blood throughout the body. This extra pressure and work can ultimately damage your heart as well as the blood vessels and can create serious long term health problems like kidney failure, heart attack, diabetes, blindness and stroke. High blood pressure can be easily kept under control with the help of regular medications, healthy diet and exercise.

The following 3 steps and healthy lifestyle habits can help manage your blood pressure at your finger tips:

1. “DASH” approach is a healthy eating diet plan to control high blood pressure.  DASH or Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension is a simple diet plan which focuses on healthy eating patterns. It emphasizes eating fresh fruits; vegetables including leafy greens; whole grains, cereals and its products; low fat dairy products; legumes, pulses and sprouts and foods low in simple sugar; total fat, trans fat, saturated fat and cholesterol. This diet emphasizes the ingestion of foods low in sodium and salt which makes it ideally suited for people suffering from Hypertension.
2. Take all your medications daily on time. Work out with your specialist for specific doses and do not increase or decrease your medications without consulting your specialist.
3. A regular exercise regime is very important along with diet and medications to control your blood pressure. A simple exercise which most people can fit in their regular routine is walking. Walking or any other moderate intensity activity when carried out for at least 30 minutes daily can not only help to reduce your blood pressure but also help to maintain a healthy body weight and so reduce your blood pressure even more.

Simple Tips To Manage High Blood Pressure

• Lose weight if you are above your ideal body weight. Being overweight or obese puts you at greater risk for developing hypertension and other health problems. Decreasing your weight by even few pounds can help decrease your blood pressure substantially.
• Learn to read the food labels before you purchase any packed foods for sodium content, cholesterol, saturated fats and trans fat.
• Shake the shaking salt habit in your meals out. On the contrary make a habit to add less salt to your meals. Certain foods like ketch-ups, soy sauce, pickles, salted chips, salted nuts, salted popcorn, monosodium glutamate, and other packed foods can add considerable salt to your diet, so try avoiding them altogether.
• Use salt free herbs and spices like basil, pepper, ginger, garlic, vinegar and lemon to add palatability and flavor to your meals.
• Avoid smoking and abstain from alcohol as far as possible.
• Stress can worsen your hypertension, so avoid any kind of stress be it physical or psychological.