If you are looking for ways to lower your blood pressure without having to reach for medications
or even if you are on medications and need to find ways to help, then this is the video
for you. Keep watching to find out simple, natural ways to get those numbers down.
Hi, I m Dr. Erik Richardson a board certified Family Practice physician.
I d like to welcome you to FamilyMed, a channel that focuses giving you practical and accurate
medical information to help you and your family. If you think this would be something that is
helpful to you make sure you subscribe, hit that notification button and follow along with us.
So Today we are going to be going over some simple things that you can start doing right now to lower
your blood pressure. Before we do that though, let s review briefly why we even care about it.
Blood pressure is just the force that your blood exerts on your vessels. Blood pressure is a good
thing because it is what keeps us all alive. When that gets too high though, it puts stress on the
blood vessels, damaging the walls of the arteries. All of this translates to putting you at risk for
a heart attack of stroke. In fact high blood pressure is the leading cause of heart disease.
Not only that, it also increases your risk for kidney disease, eye problems, forming aneurysms
and even memory loss and dementia. So overall high blood pressure is a major cause of many
of the significant health problems that we suffer from. So finding ways to be able to
control this is so important staying healthy and preventing these life changing problems.
Now we know that blood pressure is often treated with medication.
Sometimes its necessary and can be an important part of decreasing your risk of having problems,
however there is a lot that you can do on your own that could potentially help you treat it without
medication. But even if you are taking medication these suggestions can still help control your
blood pressure and maybe minimize how much you need to take. So we are going to go over some
suggestions on some great ways that you can work on this, but I do want to remind you. If you are
currently treated for high blood pressure, don t stop your medications without talking with
your doctor and review these suggestions with them to make sure that they apply to your situation.
Ok, so here are the steps that you need to work on to help lower your blood pressure.
The first one that I need you to focus on is losing weight. I know this is a broad suggestion
but just the act of losing weight will help you drop your blood pressure. Studies have shown that
for every two pounds that you lose, you can seen average drop of 1 point in your blood pressure.
Since the majority of us have 20 pounds or more that we could lose, that s can be a significant
improvement in your blood pressure. In addition to that, you should keep an eye on your waist line.
Men with waist measurements over 40 inches and women with measurements over 35 inches are at risk
for having high blood pressure. So, look at your favorite diet and get working on losing weight. If
you are looking for ideas on how to help you lose weight then check out my playlist here.
The second thing that you need to be doing is get going on an exercise program. Exercise makes your
heart stronger and makes it more efficient in pumping blood which lowers the pressures in your
arteries. We ve seen that doing 150 minutes a week of some sort of moderate intensity
exercise can make a significant drop in your blood pressure. If you haven t been exercising at all,
make sure you check with your doctor first before starting a program. Then ease into it. Start with
a walk if you haven t been doing anything and then increase the intensity over time
The Third thing you need to do is cut back on the sodium in your diet. This can be a significant
problem for most people s diet largely due to high amounts of processed and prepared
foods that we eat. High Salt diets have been associated with high blood pressure as well as
increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. Most guidelines recommend keeping your salt intake to
around 2000 mg a day. The best way to do this is to first avoid adding salt to your meals,
but second and probably more impactful is staying away from processed or fast foods.
Anything in a box, can or that is prepared for you typically has more salt.
The 4th is very broad but probably the most important. That is focus on heating
a healthy diet. Eating a diet rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables and low fat dairy
as well as minimizing foods that are high in saturated fats and cholesterol can significantly
lower your blood pressure. There are a lot of different diets out there but focusing
on staying away from the processed, high sugar foods will make a big difference. Specifically
adding foods that are higher in potassium, magnesium and calcium have been found to be
part of a healthy diet and are felt to be able to assist in naturally lowering blood pressure. It s
always better to get your vitamins and minerals from the foods you eat so focusing on ways to
eat closer to a plant/fruit based diets will do well in helping you in this goal. If you are
looking for a specific diet to follow, one that we commonly recommend is called the DASH diet
The 5th step is to keep your alcohol intake to moderate amounts. Drinking more than one alcoholic
drink a day in women and more than two a day in men has been found to increase your risk of having
high blood pressure. We ve also seen that if you are already on medication for high blood pressure,
they aren t going to work as well if you are drinking a lot. So keep your alcohol in moderation
and you are going to do better. The 6th step is one that hopefully
you are getting sick of hearing from your doctor and from everybody else in your life.
It s the one thing that will make the biggest benefit to any health change you can do.
You need to quit smoking. Not only does smoking cigarettes contribute to hardening of the arteries
which will increase your blood pressure, The act of smoking a cigarette will increase your blood
pressure and heart rate for up to 20 minutes. Quitting smoking will have a dramatic impact on
your ability to control your blood pressure. The next step, is one that may not work for
everybody, but for many it can make a difference. That is limiting your caffeine intake. We know
that caffeine can work as a constrictor of blood vessels. Consuming it, right before taking your
blood pressure, can increase your readings. What is less clear is the long term impact of drinking
caffeine. Studies have been mixed on whether it has a long term impact on your blood pressure. So
the best advice here is to keep it in moderation and don t drink a lot of it right before taking
your blood pressure or going to the doctor. The 8th step is to work on finding better ways to
decrease and manage stress in your life. Stress is a big contributor to increasing your blood
pressure. When we are subjected to a lot of stress our body responds by activating what we call the
fight or flight response. Certain hormones are released that make our blood vessels constrict
and our heart beat faster. This increases our blood pressure. As well when you are stressed,
you are more likely to eat things you shouldn t and sleep less than you should.
Several studies have shown that by working on decreasing our stress we can lower our blood
pressure. Certainly if there are ways that you can just decrease your stress overall,
just do it. If work is killing you, start looking for something else that may bring so much stress
in your life. Sometimes there isn t much that you can do to get rid of stress but there are some
healthy ways of coping with it. Doing things such as listening to soothing music, meditation and
Yoga all have been very effective in helping lower blood pressure. Sometimes we just need to take the
time to care for ourself, this is especially true when it comes to dealing with stress.
Ok, so number 9 I don t think I m going to have any arguments over. This one may surprise you.
I want you to start adding in a bit of dark chocolate or coco powder into your diet.
It has been shown that a little dark chocolate or coco powder in the diet can help decrease blood
pressure. Chocolate contains a compound called Falavinoids. Flavanoids are a plant compound
that help the blood vessels to dilate. One study showed that flavonoid-rich coca improved markers
of heart health including lowering blood pressure. For the best effects though use
non-alkalized cocoa powder which has higher content of flavonoids and no added sugars.
So finally number 10, this one may need it s own video but briefly there are some over the
counter supplements that have been found to be helpful in lowering blood pressure. Some
supplements that have some evidence behind them are Aged garlic extract, Berberine, Whey Protein,
Fish Oil and Hibiscus to name a few. I m not going to go into all the specifics on these and I don t
routinely use them in my practice, but they may be worth looking into. These are not going to
work as well as what you may get from your doctor but especially in those who are borderline and
trying to control things without medication, in conjunction with all the other things that we just
discussed, can help keep things under control. Keeping an eye on your blood pressure
is an important part of helping manage your risk of heart disease. Sometimes taking medication is
necessary, however no matter where you are with your blood pressure focusing on
simple things like losing weight, exercise, cutting back on sodium, changing your diet,
cutting back on alcohol, stopping smoking, keeping your caffeine intake down,
finding better ways to managing stress, putting a little chocolate in the diet and when appropriate
looking at supplements can do a lot to be able to control
without having to depend on medication. Make sure that you are working closely with your doctor
though on the most appropriate approach for you. Well that s about all we have, on ways to lower
your blood pressure without medications, I hope you found this to be helpful,
if you did, please take the time to give this video a like and share it with your friends. It
helps our channel to grow and reach other people that may need this in their life. If you haven t
done so yet, don t leave without subscribing and hitting that notification button so you
don t miss out on any of our future content. So until next time, this is FamilyMed with Dr.
Richardson and remember to take care of your body because it s the only one you have.