So you can lower your blood pressure without resorting to medication

Hypertension can be difficult to detect because often has no symptoms. If not treated and cut in time, there is a risk of cardiovascular disease or a heart attack in the future. At the beginning of last year, the Blue Cross Blue Shield agency published a study with a sample of millions of people. In it, a somewhat shocking statistic appeared: from 2014 to 2017, the prevalence of high blood pressure in people aged 21 to 36 increased by 16%, so if you are young you are not safe either.

(Hypertension during pregnancy increases the risk of heart failure)

Unfortunately, there is no immediate cure. But what you can do is reduce it thanks to positive lifestyle changes and follow a healthy and balanced diet, mainly low in fat and salt. The first thing you should do is be fully aware of your blood pressure levels and understand to what extent it can be considered normal or is too high. If you follow up, this will help you detect changes over time so you can make the right decisions.

For hypertensive individuals, a half-hour or one-hour cardio workout routine can lower blood pressure by as much as 7mmHg

Hypertension is usually when blood pressure measures more than 130 millimeters of mercury (mmHg) from systolic (that located in the arteries when the heart contracts) or 80 mmHg diastolic (in the beats). What are the causes that cause it to rise? In general, lack of regular physical exercise, a high-salt diet, being overweight and, of course, habitually smoke cigarettes. In general, if you manage to leave behind any of these problems, you will notice a great impact not only on your arterial health, but also on your life in general. Business Insider has compiled some tips to reduce your blood pressure little by little and progressively:

Weight management

The body mass index is one of the parameters to know if you are a healthy person or on the contrary you should start dieting to curb overweight. If you are also hypertensive, losing weight will have a very positive impact when it comes to lowering your blood pressure. For example, If you lose about 5 kilos, your systolic pressure may drop by around 10 or 12 mmHg.

Get more exercise

The best way to maintain weight control is physical activity. Regular exercise trains the heart, which in the long run will make it pump blood more efficiently, thereby lowering blood pressure. For hypertensive people, a cardio workout routine can lower blood pressure by as much as 7 mmHg. Therefore, you should do around half an hour or an hour of daily exercises that may well be a combination of aerobics (such as walking, running, or biking) or of force (with not very big weights but abundant repetitions).

A balanced diet

If you are hypertensive, logically you should stay away from the salt as much as possible. Beyond that, you should also limit fats and carbohydrates, especially if you don't supplement your diet with physical exercise. The famous DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension for its acronym in English) is usually recommended for all those with heart problems and consists basically in reducing both sodium and glucose, trans or saturated fats, and increase the obtaining of nutrients and vitamins such as potassium, calcium or magnesium. Therefore, it focuses on vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, beans and whole grains, and especially fish, rather than meat. Of course, you should avoid junk food (always with a high salt content), precooked and processed snacks.

No alcohol

Drinking alcohol can raise your blood pressure, so You should stay away from it as much as possible until you eliminate it from your diet. In case you can not give it up, at most you should limit it to half a glass or a glass at most and only during meals.

Beware of stress

Anxiety has a close relationship with hypertension. Even chronic stress is associated with a high probability of suffering from three types of heart disease: coronary artery disease, heart failure or tachycardia. Reducing stress therefore becomes a matter of the first order in people with high blood pressure. How to stop it? Business Insider recommends doing guided meditation, breathing exercises, yoga, or regular physical exercise.