Exercise to Lower and Control Blood Pressure
High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is an ever present medical condition, where the arterial blood pressure is raised. As one grows older, the risk of acquiring high blood pressure increases but whereas medication can help you deal with high blood pressure, there is a way, perhaps the most natural way of all, that one can use to help reduce and control chronic hypertension. A dirty word to some but it is Exercise that can help lower your blood pressure and keep it at a manageable level. What is the relationship between hypertension and exercise?
How Does Exercise Make My Blood Pressure Come Down?
Broadly speaking, exercise will help to make your heart strong and a strong heart will not struggle to pump blood around your body. Less effort used for pumping the blood means the loads – the pressure in other words – on the arteries is reduced resulting in lower blood pressure. In many instances, planned exercise can work better than medication in reducing blood pressure and almost as excitingly, a regular regime can keep increased blood pressure at bay in the future. Even if the full required blood pressure reduction cannot be achieved through exercise alone, it will often facilitate lower doses of medication, which of course is a good thing.
Exercise – Your Weight – Your Blood Pressure
Regular exercise helps you to maintain a healthy weight, but to realize the benefits, you need to exercise on a regular basis. and at the risk of stating the obvious, only regular ongoing exercise will enable you to continue enjoying these benefits in the future.
What Type of Exercises?
Aerobics are the most beneficial exercises for cardiac issues as they provide most exercise for your heart compared to other options and usually with least risk. Nonetheless, other options are available such as weight lifting. Although there is an initial increase in blood pressure during a weight lifting session, the overall effect is to reduce and control blood pressure. Amongst other good cardiac control exercises, you could also engage in.cycling, climbing stairs, walking, swimming and jogging. The good news is that these are all exercises where you can control the pace and are, therefore, relatively undemanding Some of them even lend themselves to your being able to listen to your iPods or watch TV, making the task even more acceptable!
Safety
Specific groups of individuals who are higher risk must check in with their doctors prior to exercising. These are smokers, obese individuals, those over the age of 40, as well as those that have suffered heart attacks or have been diagnosed with other cardiac issues. If you are on medication of any sort, it would be wise to check with your doctor if exercise may affect its efficacy or perhaps produce undesirable side-effects.
It is imperative that you precede your exercise session by performing some stretch exercises to avoid pulling any muscles or straining yourself and preferably also carry out a short warm up period of a few minutes. Discontinue the exercises if you experience shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, chest pains, dizziness or faintness. If this does happen, you would be wise to go back to your doctor and discuss what occurred.
Don’t Get Dehydrated!
It is essential that you remember to drink plenty of water. You will be perspiring a lot and the fluid must be replaced.
Monitoring Your Blood Pressure
It is advisable to check your blood pressure prior to starting your exercise session and write down the reading. It is also a good idea to take a BP reading at the end of your session, when you will probably find you have lower pressure than when you started. We have written separate articles as to what are acceptable blood pressure levels.
Home Blood Pressure Monitors
Home blood pressure monitors are readily available these days and for reasonable cost, the main price differences being attributable to additional features rather than inferior or superior accuracy. The ideal is a reasonably priced automatic digital blood pressure monitor but we know one retailer with whom we deal who will actually give you a free entry-level monitor if you buy one of their other products!
White Coat Syndrome
A point-of-interest as an aside for a moment, often when one takes blood pressure at home, well away from the doctor’s surgery, you achieve a lower reading than the doctor’s. This doesn’t mean you got it wrong! It is more likely due to “white coat hypertension” It seems probable that this is due to the nervousness some individuals feel when undergoing a medical clinic visit.
Summing Up
If you suffer from high blood pressure, exercise will provide the easiest and cheapest way of bringing down and controlling it..