Tips for Preventing High Blood Pressure

By Sean Davids

Preventing high blood pressure is very important as elevated blood pressure can lead to many more serious diseases. High blood pressure has been associated with your heredity, diet and lifestyle. The best way to keep your blood pressure at a healthy level is to live a healthy lifestyle and exercise regularly. It's also important to keep the heart in shape.

There is a certain eating plan that you can follow to reduce your heart pressure that's known as the Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension, or DASH. It is possible to lessen hypertension by eating specific foods such as vegetables, fruits, low fat dairy foods and foods that are low in fat and cholesterol. You also want to eat nuts, poultry, whole grains and fish.

Another diet specifically created for preventing high blood pressure is the DASH-sodium diet. This diet limits the amount of sodium you eat on a daily basis as sodium is directly associated with high blood pressure. This diet allows merely 1,500 mg of salt on a daily basis, which can reduce your blood pressure dramatically.

Being overweight is also associated with high blood pressure. You can significantly lower your blood pressure by losing as little as ten pounds. Obesity and high blood pressure can lead to cardiovascular disease and diabetes. You can make a big difference to your general health by losing 10 pounds.

Other than losing weight, you also want to get regular physical activity, as the more you work out the lower your resting heart rate will be when you are not working out. You do not have to go all out; just begin moderately. Simply walking 30 minutes a day is enough to help decrease your blood pressure though it's recommended that you do different things to keep it interesting. Physical activity also helps you when looking to lose weight.

Alcohol consumption is also associated with blood pressure. You want to have only 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're also trying to lose weight to lower your blood pressure, then excessive alcohol consumption can make this challenging.

Smoking also causes high blood pressure and if you're a smoker then you need to quit in order to prevent high blood pressure. You can bring your blood pressure back to normal in a year simply by quitting smoking. - 31820

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