High Blood Pressure - How To Lower It With Diet And Exercise

While high blood pressure or hypertension is a serious health concern, there’s good news. No matter what your age or physical condition be, there are things you can do to avert high blood pressure.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services offers these six tips to help you avert high blood pressure, or decrease your blood pressure if it’s now a problem.

1. Lose weight - Maintaining a healthy weight will assist prevent high blood pressure. Getting back to a normal weight is not as hard as it sounds. You can initiate by limiting the size of your meals and snacks, and cut way back on high calorie foods. If you consume as many calories as you burn each day, you’ll uphold your weight. Eating fewer calories than you burn will help you lose weight. And losing weight will help lower your blood pressure.

2. Eat healthy - Choose a diet that comprise of plenty of fruits and vegetables. Keep total fat low and avoid foods that are high in saturated fats and cholesterol levels. Having a healthy heart will help avert blood pressure.

3. Decrease salt content in your diet

Salt and sodium can raise your blood pressure, so it’s important to read food labels. The United States guidelines suggest limiting sodium intake to not more than 2,400 mg, or about 1 teaspoon of salt per day. If you eat canned or processed foods, buy the brands that are lower in sodium content. Fast food can include a lot of sodium, so if you eat fast food choose items that are less in salt and sodium. Reducing your salt intake will help to avert high blood pressure.

4. Avoid or limit alcohol The United States guidelines advocates that men have no more than two drinks per day, and women have no more than 1 alcoholic beverage per day.

5. Raise your physical activity - Exercise is a key factor in averting high blood pressure. If you get very little exercise now, start slowly and work your way up to at least Thirty minutes of a moderate-level activity, such as brisk walking or bicycling, each day. If time is a factor, you’ll still benefit by breaking the thirty minute daily exercise periods into ten or fifteen minute sessions.

6. Stop smoking - Studies shows that smoking raises your chances of developing a heart disease, heart stroke, peripheral arterial disease, and several other forms of cancer.