When Blood Pressure Drops Too Low
Sometimes your blood pressure can fall beyond what’s expected after exercise. This can happen for a variety of reasons.
The type and duration of the exercise, how much water you lose through sweat and whether you exercise in the heat are factors that can lead to a drop in blood pressure. Rehydrating, particularly when exercising in hot and humid conditions, can make you less vulnerable, according to the Hemodynamics of Hypertension report.
But if your blood pressure frequently drops when you go from lying down to sitting up or from sitting to standing, you may have what’s called orthostatic or postural hypotension.
Age may be a cause of postural hypotension. When you sit or stand, blood pools in the legs they act like reservoirs. “As we get older, the system that sends blood back up slows down; it’s not as efficient as it used to be, so you might feel dizzy while it’s adjusting,” says John A. Osborne, MD, PhD, a cardiologist who specializes in hypertension and preventive cardiology and medical director of State of the Heart Cardiology in Southlake, Texas. Your cooldown should help your body adjust.
The effect can be even more pronounced if you’re on more than one medication, such as an ACE inhibitor and a diuretic. That combination plus the natural drop in blood pressure from exercise can leave you feeling dizzy and even faint. That 5-to-10-minute cooldown after each and every exercise session becomes even more essential, according to the American Council on Exercise.
What Type Of Exercise Is Best
There are three basic types of exercise:
Low Blood Pressure After Exercise
Exercise can lower blood pressure in people with normal or elevated blood pressure levels. But its possible that a workout can lower blood pressure too much, especially if youre already predisposed to low blood pressure due to things like:
- Taking certain medications. Some antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, diuretics , drugs for heart disease, and painkillers can lower blood pressure. In some cases, blood pressure medications themselves can lower pressure too much.
- Having endocrine conditions like diabetes or parathyroid disease
- Having heart problems like heart valve disease or heart failure
- Being dehydrated, which has an effect on circulation
How do you know if you have low blood pressure? The American Heart Association notes these symptoms:
- Dizziness or lightheadedness
- Skin that looks pale and feels cold
- Being unusually tired
If youre experiencing any of these symptoms, see your healthcare provider. Low blood pressure can sometimes signal something serious, like internal blood loss, and the dizziness that often accompanies it can lead to falls and other accidents. Your healthcare provider may advise tweaking any medications youre on or lowering exercise intensity, depending on the cause of the low blood pressure.
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Drugs Vs Lifestyle Change
First, keep in mind that drugs have limited success. Most studies on diuretics and other blood pressure-lowering drugs suggest they lower the risk of cardiovascular events among those with blood pressure between 140/90 and 159/99 by 15 to 20%.3 The problem is, with this range of blood pressure, the risk of cardiovascular-related deaths has increased by 300 to 400% compared to people with normal blood pressure.
So, while treating hypertension with drugs is generally better than no treatment, it is far from a cure, asserts Dr. Fruge.
What Is The Pritikin Program For Lowering Blood Pressure
The Pritikin Program, taught by the dietitians, exercise physiologists, physicians, and psychologists at the Pritikin Longevity Center, addresses all the adverse effects associated with hypertension by:
- Providing at least 5 servings of vegetables and 4 servings of fruits daily, which help ensure that you eat plenty of foods that are full of stomach-filling volume yet are low in calories, enhancing weight-loss efforts. Losing excess weight is one of the most effective ways to lower blood pressure in the short term. Eating plenty of nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables also means youll be eating excellent sources of potassium, magnesium, and calcium. Many studies have found that foods rich in these minerals help blunt some of the toxic effects of sodium.
- Cutting back on calorie-dense foods loaded with fat, sugar, and/or refined grains to promote weight-loss efforts.
- Limiting the consumption of sodium to a healthy level less than 1,500 mg daily for people under 50 years, less than 1,300 mg daily for those 50 to 69 years, and no more than 1,200 mg daily for people 70 years and older.
- Discouraging excess alcohol drinking .
- Adding a daily exercise regime that aids in weight loss and stimulates nitric oxide production, a beneficial chemical that relaxes muscles in the artery walls and lowers blood pressure.
- Getting an adequate intake of calcium, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamin D by consuming moderate amounts of nonfat dairy foods or soymilk, seafood, and a little sunshine.
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Beyond Exercise: Can Alcohol Help
The Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure recommends that people moderate their alcohol intake. They set the limit to no more than two drinks per day for men and no more than one drink per day for women. They define a drink as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor.
How Much Exercise To Lower Blood Pressure
For about two decades, the FITT Principle has been the standard of healthy and sustainable physical activity. Pescatello says the FITT recommendation for people with hypertension is an excellent guide for aerobic and resistance training. It goes like this:
Frequency: Aerobic: 5-7 days per week; resistance: 2-3 days per weekIntensity: Aerobic: moderate; resistance: 60-70 percent of 1-rep maximum Time: Aerobic: At least 30 minutes; resistance: 2-4 sets of 8-12 reps for each major muscle groupType: Aerobic: Prolonged, rhythmic activities using major muscle groups; resistance: resistance machines, free weights, or bodyweight
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Resting Heart Rate And Health
A relatively low resting heart rate is considered healthy, while a high resting heart rate may increase the risk of various conditions.
A lower heart rate allows the heart to maintain a healthful rhythm and respond to routine stressors efficiently. These may include exercise, illness, and day-to-day activities.
Having a relatively low heart rate is a significant contribution to overall health. An abnormally high heart rate can lead to a variety of health risks and conditions.
Complications associated with a high heart rate include:
- low energy levels
Stress may cause a high heart rate.
Each heartbeat arises from specialized muscle cells called myocytes.
When these cells need more oxygen, as during exercise, the brain sends messages to the heart, causing myocytes to make stronger, more frequent pulses.
Everyone experiences sudden, temporary changes in their heart rate. They may be caused by:
Having a chronically high or abnormal heart rate is often a sign of an unhealthy lifestyle or an underlying medical condition.
Common long-term causes of a high heart rate include:
- lack of exercise
What Exercises Should I Avoid With High Blood Pressure
The single worst exercise you can do if you have high blood pressure is a leg press.
Original source: here.
The reason that the leg press is so bad for high blood pressure is because it can really increase your blood pressure, in an unnatural way. For one thing, the angle of the machine the legs are above the heart. So the heart has to work extra hard to pump blood against gravity. The other reason its so bad is the amount of weight that needs to be used to have a training effect too much.
The combination of those 2 factors makes this a worst ever exercise for high blood pressure.
How bad any given exercise is depends on both the weight, and body position. Any exercise where either the lower body is above the heart, or the head is below the heart will raise blood pressure more than exercises where the reverse is true.
So some examples would be decline pushups, decline bench press, decline situps, and so on.
Its often said that exercises where the arms push above the head should be avoided , but thats more on a case-by-case basis. The arms are much smaller than the legs, so although overhead presses do raise blood pressure, they dont do it by much.
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Effects Of Exercise On Blood Pressure
Aerobic activities such as swimming, cycling, and running put additional demands on your cardiovascular system. Your muscles need more oxygen than they do when youre at rest, so you have to breathe more quickly.
Your heart starts to pump harder and faster to circulate blood to deliver oxygen to your muscles. As a result, systolic blood pressure rises.
Its normal for systolic blood pressure to rise to between 160 and 220 mm Hg during exercise. Unless youve cleared it with your doctor, stop exercising if your systolic blood pressure surpasses 200 mm Hg. Beyond 220 mm Hg, your risk of a heart problem increases.
Different factors can influence how your cardiovascular system responds to exercise. Some of these factors include diet, medical conditions, and medications.
For instance, exercise hypertension is a condition that causes an extreme spike in blood pressure during physical activity. People with exercise hypertension can experience spikes in systolic blood pressure up to 250 mm Hg during exercise.
In general, your blood pressure should return to normal within several hours of a workout. Even then, you might notice that your blood pressure doesnt return to exactly what it was before exercise. Thats because its normal for blood pressure to drop slightly within a few hours of exercise.
What Is The Connection Between Alcohol Consumption And Hypertension
For some people, the stress management part of drinking helps to reduce their blood pressure. For others, the alcohol itself ups blood pressure. But even for those whose blood pressure goes down, is this the best way to reduce stress?
There are lots of ways to manage stress that are not centered around alcohol. Social support and love and intimacy will not only reduce your blood pressure but also reduce your risk of developing heart disease independent of its effects on blood pressure.
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Does Peh Occur In All Individuals
PEH has been well documented in humans with both borderline hypertension,, and hypertension.,, However, its occurrence in normotensive humans is inconsistent. Although we have found that PEH can be detected in normotensive individuals, it was found to be much less consistent and of lesser magnitude than in hypertensive individuals. This may be due to other compensatory mechanisms, such as the baroreflex, that are activated in normotensive subjects, and prevent the degree of PEH from affecting orthostatic tolerance.
Although there are reports of gender differences in blood pressure and sympathetic nerve activity, PEH appears to be unaffected by gender, since gender specific, and mixed gender studies,,, have found similar degrees of hypotension. It also occurs independent of age, having been observed in young, middle aged and older adults. PEH/PSH has been documented in normotensive and spontaneously hypertensive rats, as well as Dahl salt-sensitive rats. Limited work suggests that PSH does not occur in Dahl salt-resistant or renal hypertensive rats. Given the inconsistency of the PEH response in normotensive humans, the lack of hypotension found in these animal studies is not unexpected. It has been suggested that the degree of PSH may be related to the genetic pre-disposition of the animal to hypertension. Further research is needed to examine the effects of genetic predisposition on PEH in the normotensive human population.
How Long Does It Take To Lower Blood Pressure
It was just a routine doctors visit, at least thats what you thought.
But you heard news that surprised you. You have high blood pressure, your doctor announced, and you need to lower it to avoid some very serious things that high blood pressure can lead to, like strokes and heart attacks.
Many people can reduce their high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, in as little as 3 days to 3 weeks.
Its a lot to take in, and you have questions, including:
How long does it take to lower blood pressure? and
Whats the best way to do it?
Here are answers from the physicians, registered dietitians, and other faculty at the famed Pritikin Longevity Center in Miami, which has helped thousands over the past four decades lower their blood pressure and live well.
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More Studies Are Needed
More comparative studies are needed to show how much more or less effective exercise is when compared to just taking antihypertensive medication. A current study published in the Journal of British Sports Medicine focused on only this problem and aimed to fill this gap in research.
They found that both medication and aerobic exercise have similar effects. As there was no data that compared the results of a structured exercise regime with that of the effects of taking blood pressure medication this study was an analysis of the findings of several different research projects that focused on one or other of these variables
See Your Doctor Regularly
When you have been sedentary, overweight, or have a high risk of coronary heart disease or other chronic health problem, you must have your doctor’s approval before starting a fitness program. Have your blood pressure measured by a health care professional. They can advise you as to how often to have it rechecked.
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Can I Really Make The Kinds Of Lifestyle Changes That Will Lower My Blood Pressure
Changing your lifestyle is a very personal decision. I never tell patients what to do. But what concerns me, and why I appreciate the chance to talk with WebMD, is that many people don’t even know they have a choice.
They go to their doctor or dietitian or nurse and get put on a very moderate diet — less red meat, more fish and chicken, three or four eggs a week, and so on. It doesn’t do too much. Then they are told, “Now you have failed diet, and we have to put you on these drugs for the rest of your life.”
What I would like to see people told is, “OK, for some people small changes are enough, because there is a spectrum of healthy choices. But for you, if moderate change doesn’t work, it just means you need to make bigger changes than someone else.”
Our genes do play a role. But they are more of a predisposition, not a death sentence. If you are genetically unlucky, you just have to make bigger changes. For most people, if the changes are big enough, under their doctor’s care they can reduce or get off these drugs. That’s what makes our work radical. It gets to the root of the problem.
Some Symptoms Of Hypotension
- blurred vision
- cognitive impairment
Of course, one simple way to prevent this is by standing during the entire workout. You can also minimize elevation changes by performing all of your floor exercises together. Then take several minutes to move from lying on the floor to sitting on the floor to kneeling and finally to standing.
As I wrote in Blood Pressure and Exercise, post-exercise hypotension is normal and expected. Again, since your client already has low blood pressure, this can be a problem.
During an exercise session, contracting muscles help pump blood back to the heart. After the session, blood will tend to pool in the extremities leaving less blood in the heart. This causes a decline in cardiac output that causes BP to drop.Also following a workout, blood vessels remain relatively dilated, which also lowers BP. In addition, since body temperature is higher after exercise, blood vessels near the surface of the skin dilate to help your body release heat.
The most dangerous time may be when your client is in the shower or sauna. High temperature environments will cause further decreases in blood pressure, so ask your client to rest as long as possible following the post-workout cool down before she takes a shower.
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Find Something You Like
If you love the outdoors, combine it with exercise and enjoy the scenery while you walk or jog. If you love to listen to audiobooks, enjoy them while you use an elliptical machine.
These activities are especially beneficial when done regularly:
- Brisk walking, hiking or stair-climbing
- Jogging, running, bicycling, rowing or swimming
- Fitness classes at your appropriate level
- Activities such team sports, a dance class or fitness games
Blood Pressure Following Exercise
A number of investigators have examined the effects of chronic exercise training on resting blood pressure in hypertensive populations . It is generally accepted that the mechanisms underlying the sustained decrease in blood pressure of hypertensive individuals after training are a decrease in the resting heart rate and a decrease in circulating catecholamines. This decrease in circulating catecholamines is directly related to a decrease in sympathetic nerve activity.
Studies examining the acute effects of exercise on blood pressure have noted the transient pressure undershoot, described above, but have normally been terminated when blood pressure has re-attained normal values. However, more recent studies examining blood pressure responses in the prolonged post exercise period have documented that an acute bout of exercise may transiently decrease resting blood pressure in the minutes or hours following exercise. Although there are no defined criteria for the magnitude of the pressure decrement or duration of the response, this transient reduction in blood pressure has been termed post exercise hypotension . Post stimulatory hypotension refers to the same phenomenon when it is elicited by simulating exercise by electrically stimulating muscles in certain animal models.
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