Tips for Preventing High Blood Pressure

Preventing high blood pressure is very important as elevated blood pressure can result in many more serious health conditions. High blood pressure has been linked to your genetics, diet and lifestyle. The best way to keep your blood pressure at a healthy level is to live a healthy lifestyle and exercise on a regular basis. It is also important to keep the heart in shape.

There have been several diets developed to help you prevent high blood pressure by eating foods that keep your blood pressure low, called the Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension (DASH). This DASH diet concentrates on low fat dairy, vegetables, low cholesterol foods, low fat foods and fruits. The recommended foods include whole grains, nuts, poultry and fish.

There’s another diet known as the DASH-sodium diet, as your sodium intake affects your blood pressure. This diet limits your sodium intake to 1,500 milligrams a day. Studies have shown that reducing your sodium intake can help control high blood pressure.

Many other factors such as being overweight can also create high blood pressure. You can prevent high blood pressure by losing a small amount of weight, such as ten pounds or so. Besides reducing high blood pressure, losing weight also lowers the chance of developing cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol and diabetes. Losing weight has a great range of health rewards.

It is also extremely important that you get regular exercise, as physical activity impacts the heart in particular. The more you exercise the lower your resting heart rate, so exercise is an effective form of high blood pressure treatment. Your workout does not need to be full out from the start; you can work up to an acceptable amount of exercise. It’s suggested that you begin with a walking schedule first. You just will need to get a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise at least 5 times a week.

Alcohol consumption is also associated with blood pressure. You want to have just one drink a day to keep your high blood pressure in check. One drink is equivalent to 5 ounces of wine, 1.5 ounces of liquor and 12 ounces of beer. Men can have up to 2 drinks in a day and women up to 1 drink a day. If you are also trying to lose weight to decrease your blood pressure, then exorbitant alcohol consumption can make this difficult.

Another factor that’s effective for preventing high blood pressure is smoking. If you are a smoker and have hypertension then you should look into quitting as quickly as you can. If you do not smoke then you don’t want to start smoking either. Your possibility of getting a heart attack due to smoking will be reduced after merely one year of not smoking.

Hypertension and high blood pressure are two names for the same condition. Due to our sedentary lives and easy access to junk food, the problem is escalating. And if left unchecked, it can lead to heart disease. Learn more about treatment for high blood pressure at the High Blood Pressure Control site.

Tags: heart disease in woman, cause of heart disease, prevent heart disease