54! non-drug ways to lower blood pressure
Written by: collin_carbno | Posted: May 29 2009
I currently have a list of 54 different suggestions (non-drug) to lower blood pressure. As part of this blog, I want to work my way through the list and give you my impressions and thoughts on this list. My list was composed roughly in the order that I found them. Many of these points have the potential, on average, to lower blood pressure by 2 to 5 points. My idea here is that although each one might have a small effect, combinations of 7 or more of them may allow for substantial reductions in blood pressure. I tried to include only items on the list for which at least one scientific study has found evidence of an improvement in blood pressure. The advantage of having many suggested possibilities to lower blood pressure is that it provides variety in the approach. If one set of possibilities doesn’t work, you can try others.
I once read that a medical researcher suspected that there were up to about 20 different causes of high blood pressure. If so, then it isn’t surprising that some drugs and some treatments don’t work for all folks.
1. Use RESPeRATE (Rr)
My impression from the studies is that the majority of folks (more than half) get a positive response from using RESPeRATE. That aside, it’s highly possible that there are folks that do not get any benefit from using the Rr. The most likely cause in these cases is that they have some cause not effectively managed by Rr and not that they are incorrectly using the machine. Still, when I first started using the machine, I didn’t notice any benefit for the first 3 weeks. I took my blood pressure before and after each session, and sometimes BP went down, sometimes it went up, and sometimes it stayed the same, but an hour later my blood pressure seemed unchanged.
Sometime in the 3rd week, however, I began to relax and I didn’t try to perfect the process. I simply began to relax, enjoy it, and I didn’t worry so much about keeping in perfect time with the machine. Presto — after each session my blood pressure dropped sharply. Then, when I had high blood pressure, I would do a session and drop the blood pressure. If it still wasn’t down enough I’d do another session, and drop it a bit more, and if I had time, I’d even do a third session and drop it further. This gave me a kind of positive feedback loop. I began to feel that I could do something to control my blood pressure value. I then started to notice that my readings an hour later were lower, and over the next few weeks began to see my daily readings dropping. Currently, I try to do one 10 minute session per day. On holidays, and weekends, I try to get in two sessions.
2. Lower Your Salt Intake
Get your salt (sodium) intake down below 1000 mg per day. (The actual number seems to be somewhat in debate– 1000 mg might be too low, and different individuals may need to hit different values to have an effect). My point here is mostly to cut down on your salt. Most prepared foods have some salt, so you have to be careful when trying to add up the amounts – it’s easy to miss substantial amounts of salt. Of course, the body has a need for salt, so I wouldn’t suggest that anyone go on an ultra low salt diet. Be warned that many types of bread have 100 mg per slice, some cheeses have 400 mg of salt or more per slice, and some canned goods contain up to 95 0mg per tin.
Salt has been a somewhat controversial issue — is it the salt itself or is it other ingredients in the salty foods associated with higher blood pressure? Many highly processed foods have a high salt content and low nutritional value. So, perhaps it isn’t the salt reduction itself, maybe the nutritional improvement from substituting other healthier foods is what makes the difference. Nevertheless, there is a theory that excess salt damages the cardiovascular system over time. Studies show that in about half of the cases of hypertension, the reduction of salt in the diet proved to be helpful. The elderly and African Americans are the most likely to benefit from restricted salt intake.
My personal observation is that ingesting a high dosage of salt (2000 mg+ per day), if I have several back-to-back meals that are loaded with salt, my blood pressure will rise 20/20 points and stay up for 3 days. On the other hand, if I get my salt down to a more reasonable level, I haven’t found any improvement from dropping it further. I do feel that salt is somehow hard on the body and it probably does put stress on the cardiovascular system. It seems from reading the medical literature that if you follow a low salt diet for extended periods of time, like years, that there is a kind of accumulative health benefit. Again, the bulk of the benefit may come from the fact that low salt foods tend to be healthier as a whole, rather than the negative impact of the salt itself. My personal thought is that both effects are operating, salt itself is harmful in some way, and the healthy food - less processed, less chemicals of low salt food, also improves overall health.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2288755
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