9 EFFECTIVE WAYS TO CONTROL AND REDUCE HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

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High blood pressure (hypertension) is called the “silent killer” for good reason. It has no symptoms, but it’s a major risk for heart disease and stroke. And these are the leading causes of death in the Nigeria,United states and other part of the world.

Your blood pressure is measured in millimeters of mercury, abbreviated mmHg. There are two numbers involved:

• the pressure in your blood vessels when your heart beats (systolic blood pressure, the top number)

• the pressure in your blood vessels between beats, when your heart is resting (diastolic blood pressure, the bottom number)

Blood pressure that’s less than 120/80 mmHg is considered normal. Blood pressure that’s 140/90 mmHg or more is considered high. If your numbers are above normal but under 140/90 mmHg, you fall into the category of what’s called prehypertension. This means that you’re at risk for high blood pressure. Studies show that in 2 to 4 years, between 30 and 40 percent of people with prehypertension progress to hypertension.

1. Increase your activity level and exercise

Most healthy people should get at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a week. If you need to lower your blood pressure, though, the American Heart Association has some additional advice: Within that 150 minutes, aim to get 40 minutes of higher-intensity (moderate to vigorous) activity three or four times a week. “It really can be anything that makes you break a sweat, but the important thing is that it’s something you can do most days, without fail,” says, Dr. Bisognano, who is also the president elect of the American Society for Hypertension. “If you want to go to the gym for an hour a day and run or take classes, fantastic. But if a brisk walk around the neighborhood fits your lifestyle better, than that’s great too.”
If you’re starting from scratch and even this level of fitness seems intimidating, take heart. Even just a few minutes a day of easy exercise helped to lower blood pressure in a 2015 study of overweight adults with diabetes.

2.  Eat less sodium, more potassium

Cutting back on salt and increasing your potassium intake can lower your blood pressure.
Potassium is a double winner: It lessens the effect of salt in your system, and also eases tension in your blood vessels.
It’s easy to increase your intake of potassium — so many foods are naturally high in potassium. Here are a few:

• dairy foods (milk, yogurt)
• fish
• fruits (bananas, apricots, oranges)
• vegetables (sweet potato, potato, tomato, greens, spinach)

Note that individuals respond to salt differently. Some people are salt-sensitive: A higher salt intake increases their blood pressure. Others are salt-insensitive. They can have a high salt intake, and excrete it in their urine without raising their blood pressure.
Reducing salt intake using the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) is recommended by the National Institutes of Health. The DASH diet emphasizes low sodium, fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy, whole grains, fish, poultry, beans, and fewer sweets and red meats.

3.    Eat less processed food

Most of the extra salt in our diet comes from processed foods and restaurant food, not your salt shaker at home. Popular high-salt items include pizza, chips, and other 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 give you less salt, less sugar, and fewer refined carbohydrates. All of this results in lower blood pressure.
Make it a practice to check labels. Sodium that’s listed as 5 percent or less on the label of a food item is considered low. Twenty percent or more is considered high, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

4.    Lose weight if you're overweight
 If you’re overweight, losing even 5 to 10 pounds can reduce your blood pressure. Plus, you’ll lower your risk of other medical problems.

5.   Cut back on sugar and refined carbohydrate

 
Many scientific studies show that restricting sugar and refined carbohydrates can help you lose weight and lower your blood pressure.
A 2010 study compared a low-carb diet to a low-fat diet. The low-fat diet included a diet drug. Both diets produced weight loss, but the low-carb diet did much better in lowering blood pressure. The low-carb diet lowered blood pressure by 4.5-5.9 mmHg. The diet of low fat plus the diet drug lowered blood pressure by only 0.4-1.5 mmHg.
A side effect of a low-carb, low-sugar diet is that you’ll feel fuller, because you’re consuming more protein and fat. You’ll also lower your risk for other diseases, such as diabetes.

6.  Stop smoking

After a cigarette break, blood pressure rises for a short time. Interestingly—and even though it’s bad for your heart in other ways—it doesn’t seem to raise levels very much in the long-term. But besides those temporary spikes, there’s another reason to kick the habit: Smoking dulls taste buds, says Dr. Bisognano, so smokers tend to salt their food more and have a harder time decreasing sodium intake.

7.   Find a way to relax

Stress can cause blood pressure to rise, both short- and long-term. So finding something that helps you relax can be an important part of preventing or reducing hypertension. What that something is, exactly, is up to you—but research suggests that yoga, meditation, spending time with pets, laughing, and even having sex (!) may be good choices. “Just like with exercise, you have to choose something that you enjoy and that you can do consistently as part of your daily lifestyle,” says Dr. Bisognano. 

8.    Drink less alcohol

Moderate alcohol consumption—up to one drink a day for women and two for men—may have beneficial effects on blood pressure. “But any more than that seems to do just the opposite,” says Dr. Goldberg. “We know that heavy drinking raises blood pressure, in addition to increasing your risk for other chronic conditions.”
This shouldn’t just be a concern for older adults or people who already have high blood pressure, either. A 2016 study found that 20-somethings who regularly drink alcohol were more likely than their moderately drinking peers to have prehypertension—a condition that can progress to full-blown hypertension.

9.  Watch your coffee habit


“Moderate coffee intake doesn’t seem to make much of a difference in blood pressure levels,” says Dr. Bisognano, “but I do see more and more people drinking huge amounts of highly caffeinated beverages—and that very likely has a negative effect.” A few cups of coffee a day is fine for most people, he adds, but “if you measure coffee in pots, you could be in trouble.” Watch out for energy drinks, too, which have been shown to spike blood pressure and cause irregular heart rhythms.