HOW TO LOWER BLOOD PRESSURE NATURALLY - FACTS & MYTHS.

                                    

                         
HOW TO LOWER BLOOD  PRESSURE NATURALLY - FACTS & MYTHS.

If you have high blood pressure , hypertension, you may have probably been told to lower your blood pressure. Most health consultants may tell you to lose weight & belly fat , exercise regularly, eat a healthy diet, reduce sodium, limit alcohol, quit smoking, reduce caffeine, reduce stress, monitor your blood pressure (BP) and to see your doctor, and get support to cope with having high blood pressure. They say doing these things will help your heart health & reduce heart disease, but are these tactics the best ways to lower your high blood pressure ? Let us try to understand each of these tactics & how much are these actually help.

Today , in this blog we will try to understand  the root cause & how to lower blood pressure naturally without medication, and if and which of the techniques to lower blood pressure really work.

NORMAL BP : 120/80 this is optimal for most people but there are some natural variations. BP over 180 is a crisis , but during exercise your BP can get up to 220 & this is totally normal. 

1. Lose weight & watch your belly fat : belly fat is not causing anything but it is the result of something destructive, namely INSULIN RESISTANCE , if you reduce insulin resistance then you lose weight and your BP typically comes down. The right way to reduce insulin resistance is low carb, intermittent fasting, keto diet , these reduce your craving , reduce your hunger & your satiety level goes up ,you eat less because your insulin level is going down. So, it is not the weight that cause high BP , but the fact is you are decongesting your body. 

2. Exercise Regularly : This is a great advice , but what's the mechanism ? Why does this works ? Exercise is the number one stimulant for the brain , your brain is what ultimately manages blood pressure, BP is variable , it is controlled and managed every moment of your life , if we can get the brain into better balance then it will manage your BP better. Exercise is 90% of the signals of activation that keeps your brain alive , so when you exercise its like you turn-up the dimmer switch all the way to your brain as a result it has all the power to inhabit the stress, stress is what raises blood sugar .

3. Eat A Healthy Diet : This also is a great advice, but what is a healthy diet ? Diet that is low in carb. 

4. Reduce Sodium : This is the biggest misconception about blood pressure , probably most people are aware of this myth. Let's assume you start with a balanced blood pressure , then you eat bunch of salt ( sodium / Natrium ), sodium binds to water or sodium is pulling water to it & makes the blood increase in volume , therefore your blood pressure goes up, but what most people do not take into consideration is the most powerful principles of your physiology  known as PRESSURE DIURESIS, by which the extra fluid from your body is removed , your body already has this mechanism to do that ,where a relatively small increase in blood pressure resulting from increased blood volume, DIURESIS will get rid of the extra sodium & water through your kidneys and lower the increased blood pressure , unless something is over riding the PRESSURE DIURESIS mechanism.  Kidneys actually filters out about 250 litres of fluid per day , but you get rid of  only about one and a half litres of fluid per day , the balance fluid is reabsorbed in the body along with sodium , sodium is a precious nutrient,Sodium is the most important signalling mineral in the body. But  because of this advice of REDUCE SODIUM many people are with sodium deficiency. Only if you have a kidney failure then you should restrict Sodium intake, other wise need not worry. But it is always better to have salt in moderate quantity in cooked food & avoid taking raw salt directly. 

5. Limit Alcohol :  If its a must for you then one to two drinks in a day may reduce your blood pressure as it makes you relax & reduces stress , but with larger doses it makes blood pressure worse. With increased doses you get fatty livers and insulin resistance. But then you should take alcohol off for at least 2 days in a week. 

6. Quit Smoking : Why does it works ?  because smokers block their oxygen carrying capacity - when they breath in the carbon monoxide that blocks the red blood cells , they don't have the ability to carry oxygen as well as in case of a non smoker, now the body has to increase its effort at fuel delivery , increase heart rate , increase blood pressure to deliver more blood because each unit of blood has less oxygen . So if you quit smoking then you have more access to oxygen & your BP goes down.

7. Reduce Caffeine : Caffeine is a form of stress , it has the same effect on the body as adrenaline , it fits into the same type of receptors. In most cases caffeine will have a direct effect on blood pressure , but in a healthy person it is not a problem because it doesn't create the circumstances behind blood pressure , it is a temporary signal that while you have caffeine your blood pressure will be few points higher but it does not create a problem in itself unless you have weak adrenaline or your stress level is such that you can blow it out of proportion by adding little bit of caffeine. For most people it is a temporary effect and do not contribute to any root causes .

8. Reduce Stress : Stress is the perception that the body needs more resources and it is going to increase blood pressure and heart rate to deliver more fuel to the body to deal with the stress, that is a good thing, but here "reduce stress" means avoiding stressful situations, but in today's world if you are active , the world will come to you in some way or the other, it is difficult to avoid such situation, it is not what the world does but how you react or respond to the situation, in that case stress is a perception , unless you learn to change that perception & undo what your response is to the stress. This can be done by doing some meditation & relaxation and breathing exercises. Reducing stress is not about avoiding things but what you can do is change your response to it and help your body reset. 10-15 minutes of meditation , breathing & relaxation exercises daily will do wonder.

9. Monitor Your Blood Pressure : This is not a bad advice, rather it is good to monitor your BP , the best way is, if you see your BP has gone up, then do some breathing exercises & you will see that it has come down.

10 . Get Support group :  some suggest join a group where you can interact with people in similar condition so that you can "cope" with your condition. I think this is very unfortunate , this is based on our perception that all these conditions are permanent , chronic & incurable, because they do not address the root causes so they believe it is incurable, so the best thing is to cope with it & find groups where there is sympathy and feel that you are not alone. 

 If we look into the above reasons , we find that almost everything has to do with 2 things, which are the root cause :

A. INSULIN RESISTANCE .

B. INCREASED NEED TO DELIVER FUEL, that is why the body raises the blood pressure.- smoking,  anemia , stress.

When we understand that there are certain simple mechanisms that create all this problems , then we can undo those mechanisms and there is no reason to "cope". 

If you are given the choice of restoring function in the body or coping with the condition , then 99 out of 100 would want to restore health, feel good & address and handle the root cause.