Get Enough Sleep Each Night
Although sleep may not directly lower a persons blood pressure, it is vital for physical health and mental wellbeing. A lack of good quality sleep can increase the risk of chronic health conditions, some of which may increase a persons blood pressure.
The exact amount of sleep a person needs will vary from person to person. However, adults should be aiming to get between 79 hours of good quality sleep each night.
How Can I Lower My Diastolic Blood Pressure Quickly
If you would like to try something that could immediately impact how well your heart is pumping and moving blood through your body, consider cayenne pepper!
Cayenne pepper has been shown in studies conducted by scientists from the University Of Saskatchewan College Of Medicine to increase peripheral circulation.
Reduce Your Sodium Intake
Itâs a prime offender in raising blood pressure. The American Heart Association recommends that people with hypertension keep it under 1,500 milligrams a day. Check your food labels to see how much youâre getting. If you cut back gradually, youâre less likely to notice the difference.
One way to cut back is to prepare your food at home. Seventy-five percent of your sodium intake comes from eating out and packaged foods. Use more spices for flavor instead of salt. Eating more potassium helps move sodium out of your body. A small effort can bring blood pressure down as much as two to eight points.
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Put Some Dash In Your Lunch And Dinner
Dont worry were not back in gym class again. While dashing is indeed a good way to get some vigorous exercise, its also about what youre eating, too.
DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. Its a high blood pressure diet specifically designed to focus on foods that reduce blood pressure that is, foods rich in calcium, potassium and magnesium as well as low in sodium and fat.
What You Can Do To Lower Your Blood Pressure
What isn’t a mystery is that lifestyle changes can play a big part in reducing and controlling blood pressure levels. These include cutting back on dietary salt, quitting smoking, eating a plant-based diet, exercising regularly, losing excess weight, and managing stress.
Here are a few simple suggestions from 500 Time-Tested Home Remedies and the Science Behind Them for enhancing your diet and managing stress.
Eat Fish. The omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil from fatty fish such as sardines, mackerel, and salmon have been shown to reduce blood pressure in people with mild hypertension. Here’s an easy recipe for a quick snack or lunch that’ll provide omega-3s:
- 1 can oil-packed sardines
- 12-16 whole-grain crackers
- Lemon wedges
- Sprigs of parsley
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Watch Out For Sneaky Sodium In Your Diet
Sodium is one of our bodys essential nutrients. However, when eaten in large amounts, it can contribute to high blood pressure. If you have high blood pressure, aim for no more than 1,500 mg a day. You can do this by reading sodium amounts on food labels and preparing food at home instead of eating out.
You can also look for low or no sodium versions of your favorite foods, like canned beans, which should contain less than 140 mg of sodium per serving. If you dont have issue with elevated blood pressures, you should still look at food labels and try to limit your daily sodium intake to no more than 2,300 mg.
The typical American diet can contain 3,400 mg of sodium or more. To help you be more mindful of those foods, the American Heart Association has identified what they call the Salty Six.
Instead of salt, lean on herbs and spices to enhance and provide flavor. Choose unsalted snacks as another way to keep salt out of your diet. All of these are great steps to lower your blood pressure and keep your heart healthy. Check out these 5 heart-healthy steps to work into your diet.
How Long Does It Take For High Blood Pressure To Go Down
Medication helps lower blood pressure quickly, typically within a few days. However, it may not be the best long-term treatment due to side effects. Medication can help manage high blood pressure while a person changes their underlying lifestyle that may be causing high blood pressure. Diet changes can quickly lower blood pressure in many cases.
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Eat Garlic Or Take Garlic Extract Supplements
Fresh garlic or garlic extract are both widely used to lower blood pressure .
According to one clinical study, a time-release garlic extract preparation may have a greater effect on blood pressure than regular garlic powder tablets .
One 2012 review noted a study of 87 people with high blood pressure that found a diastolic reduction of 6 mm Hg and a systolic reduction of 12 mm Hg in those who consumed garlic, compared to people without any treatment (
Seek Help For Snoring
Loud, incessant snoring is a symptom of obstructive sleep apnea , a disorder that causes brief but dangerous breathing interruptions. Up to half of sleep apnea patients also live with hypertension, possibly due to high levels of aldosterone, a hormone that can boost blood pressure. Fixing sleep apnea could be helpful for improving BP, says Robert Greenfield, M.D., medical director of Non-Invasive Cardiology & Cardiac Rehabilitation at MemorialCare Heart & Vascular Institute.
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Lower Blood Pressure With Breathing Exercises
Below you will find different deep breathing techniques to help you naturally reduce stress and lower blood pressure.
Alternate nose breathing: Place yourself in a meditative pose and hold the right nostril down with your right thumb. Inhale deeply from the left nostril, and before exhaling close the left nostril and exhale through the right nostril. Continue this pattern for a few minutes.
Music-guided breathing: An FDA-approved device called RESPeRATE uses musical tones to guide deep abdominal breathing. The goal is to reduce the number of breaths to less than 10 a minute, and prolong exhalation.
Equal breathing: Begin by inhaling through your nose while counting to four and exhaling through your mouth for a count of four.
Abdominal breathing techniques: Place one hand on the chest and the other on the belly. Take a deep breath through the nose and ensure the diaphragm is enlarging, not the chest. Take six to 10 slow, deep breaths per minute for a total of 10 minutes.
Skull shining breath: Begin with a long, slow inhale and release the air through a quick powerful exhale generated from the lower belly. Once comfortable with this technique, you can speed it up to one inhale-exhale every one to two seconds for 10 breaths in total.
Guided visualization: This is where you maintain a peaceful mental image while breathing.
Drink Milk Coconut Water And Cranberry Juice
Milk is a superfood. It consists of potassium, calcium, and Vitamin D. These nutrients are directly proven to lower blood pressure immediately.
Coconut water is highly rich in potassium, electrolytes, and minerals. These nutrients are an immediate solution to hypertension.
Not only that, at times, deficiency of these minerals can cause hypertension.
A study in West Indian Medical Journal proved that coconut water drops the pressure by margins.
Cranberry juice is rich in proanthocyanidins. This helps in reducing high BP by dilating blood vessels and increasing blood flow.
Articles published in Nature, 2016 proves that berry juice lowers systolic blood pressure.
However, milk is not suitable for everyone as people have lactose intolerance.
Thus, consultation with a doctor before the change in diet is advisable.
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How Long Will It Take To Lower Blood Pressure
With a strict diet and lifestyle changes, high BP can be lowered in 2-3 weeks.
However, there are categories in high blood pressure. So, first watch out for these categories:
Elevated Blood Pressure
The reading shows around 120-129/80. It is called pre-hypertension.
Stage I Hypertension
The reading varies from 130-139/90.
Stage II Hypertension
The readings vary from 140/90 or higher.
Hypertensive Crisis
Try Cutting Back On The Salt
Reducing your sodium intake can play an important role in lowering your systolic blood pressure. The average American consumes more than 3,500 milligrams of sodium daily, which is well above the American Heart Association‘s recommendation of less than 2,300 milligrams per day.
“I think we all know that adding salt to your food is bad for your blood pressure,” Dr. Berger says. “But what we don’t always know is that when you eat food from a can or a box, it is filled with sodium.”
Dr. Berger recommends following a reduced-sodium diet called DASH , developed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, which also emphasizes a reduction in trans fats and refined sugar, as well as a sufficient intake of magnesium, potassium and calcium.
Because everyone responds differently to dietary changes, it may take some fine-tuning to find the right diet for your specific heart health.
“Everyone’s sodium responsiveness is a bit different,” says Howard Weintraub, MD, the clinical director of the Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, at NYU Langone Health in New York City. “So if you’re going to take the time to modify your nutrition, you shouldn’t only reduce how much salt you use, but also make it more healthy in general.”
In other words, Dr. Weintraub says, leaving the salt off but continuing to eat French fries probably isn’t going to help.
Read more:10 Effortless Ways to Finally Cut Down on Salt
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Eat The Watermelon Seeds
Watermelon seeds consist of a compound called cucurbocitrin, which helps broaden the blood capillaries. At the same time, it also works well for kidney function. This in results reduces blood pressure levels and also helps treat arthritis. To use this method, take 2 tsp of dried watermelon seeds and grind it to turn it into a fine powder. Add this powder to a glass of warm water. Leave it for about an hour. Now, drink this mixture regularly for better results.
Apple Cider Vinegar Can Help Lower Blood Pressure Naturally
Although apple cider may not lower blood pressure immediately, it could help treat some types of hypertension.
Most of the medicinal properties of apple cider vinegar come from its content of acetic acid. One study found that acetic acid helps to inhibit certain enzymes that can cause high blood pressure. Scientists found that acetic acid solutions had a positive effect on blood pressure levels.
You can learn more about the therapeutic effects of apple cider vinegar to help cure hypertension without medication.
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What’s The Right Way To Measure Blood Pressure
If youve ever tested your blood pressure at home, youve probably discovered that you dont get a consistent number. Numbers can jump up or down 20, 30, or even 40 points in one day sometimes in just a few minutes. It’s different at different times of the day, and no two days are the same. So if your systolic pressure goes from 150 in the doctors office to 120 at home, do you have hypertension? Prehypertension? Neither of these? How do you know?
If you monitor your blood pressure at home, you might also discover that many doctors don’t follow the guidelines for properly taking blood pressure readings. Guidelines featured in a video by the American Academy of Family Physicians instruct home measurers to follow these steps:
Relax In Savasana Posture
Savasana is a modified yoga pose that can help to reduce the heartbeat rate and reduce blood pressure naturally & significantly. This method doesnt require you to do too much.
Just lie on your back, close your eyes and try to relax each muscle on your body. Resting in this position for about ten to fifteen minutes will help you feel better. Besides reducing your blood pressure quickly, the Savasana posture will also help balance your nervous system. This yoga is regarded as one of the best ways to lower blood pressure naturally.
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Monitor Your Numbers At Home
The act of taking your own blood pressure wont lower it, but getting to know your numbers can help you better understand whats healthy and whats not for you. The first time patients have a high blood pressure reading in the doctors office, we dont usually start treating right way, says Dr. Goldberg. Thats because individual readings can vary, especially in potentially high-stress situations like a doctors visit.
Dr. Goldberg teaches these patients to monitor their blood pressure at home in the mornings and evenings. This gives her a more complete picture before prescribing any medications. But theres a hidden benefit, as well: Research suggests that keeping track of their own blood pressure may be incentive for patients to make healthy choices like losing weight and eating healthier.
How To Lower Blood Pressure Naturally
The term lifestyle changes implies you will need to change your habits to bring your blood pressure down. Broadly speaking, these modifications are natural non-pharmaceutical ways of lowering blood pressure. Six methods have been proven effective in clinical studies, and two others are recommended:
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Eat More Potassium And Less Sodium
Increasing your potassium intake and cutting back on salt can also lower your blood pressure .
Potassium is a double winner: It lessens the effects of salt in your system, and also eases tension in your blood vessels. However, diets rich in potassium may be harmful to individuals with kidney disease, so talk to your doctor before increasing your potassium intake.
Its easy to eat more potassium so many foods are naturally high in potassium. Here are a few:
17 ). Popular high-salt items include deli meats, canned soup, pizza, chips, and other processed snacks.
Foods labeled low-fat are usually high in salt and sugar to compensate for the loss of fat. Fat is what gives food taste and makes you feel full.
Cutting down on or even better, cutting out processed food will help you eat less salt, less sugar, and fewer refined carbohydrates. All of this can result in lower blood pressure.
Make it a practice to check labels. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration , a sodium listing of 5 percent or less on a food label is considered low, while 20 percent or more is considered high (
Eat More Foods High In Magnesium
A small study in the International Journal of Hypertension found magnesium supplementation can reduce blood pressure in small amountsNguyen H, Odelola OA, Rangaswami J, Amanullah A. A Review of Nutritional Factors in Hypertension Management. International Journal of Hypertension. 2013 698940. . Talk to your doctor before taking magnesium supplements, especially if you have kidney disease. You can also safely incorporate high-magnesium foods into your diet. Dr. Desai recommends foods like leafy green vegetables and unsalted almonds.
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Try Meditation Or Deep Breathing
While these two behaviors could also fall under stress reduction techniques, meditation and deep breathing deserve specific mention.
Both meditation and deep breathing may activate the parasympathetic nervous system. This system is engaged when the body relaxes, slowing the heart rate, and lowering blood pressure.
Theres quite a bit of research in this area, with studies showing that different styles of meditation appear to have benefits for lowering blood pressure .
Deep breathing techniques can also be quite effective.
In one study, participants were asked to either take six deep breaths over the course of 30 seconds or simply sit still for 30 seconds. Those who took breaths lowered their blood pressure more than those who just sat .
Try guided meditation or deep breathing. Heres a video to get you started.
Bottom line: Both meditation and deep breathing can activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps slow your heart rate and lower blood pressure.
When To See A Doctor
Measuring blood pressure is the only way to determine whether it is high. People can visit their doctor for a routine blood pressure monitoring. Alternatively, people can ask their doctor for advice on how to measure their blood pressure at home.
People at risk of developing high blood pressure must have regular health checkups and monitor their blood pressure at home.
A person should also see their doctor if they have high blood pressure, and their efforts to lower their blood pressure are ineffective.
High blood pressure can lead to several health complications. According to the AHA, potential complications include:
- stroke
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Acupuncture To Help Reduce Blood Pressure Fast
One of the natural remedies for hypertension to reduce your dependence on medication is acupuncture.
Acupuncture therapy every second day for a month helped to lower dangerously high blood pressure. On average acupuncture lowered systolic blood pressure by 18 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure by 7 mmHg.
Other trials have found that acupuncture is an effective natural remedy for mild hypertension.
Learn how acupuncture can also help to improve your mood and lower stress levels.