Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Blood Pressure Control Is Health Control

By Owen Jones


If you have been informed that your blood pressure is quite high (that is, that you have hypertension), then what you were actually being told was that your lifestyle is not particularly healthy. This is because, unless your hypertension has come about because of ethnicity, age, sleeplessness or medication, you are doing something wrong in your daily life.

Blood pressure control for most individuals means initiating lifestyle changes for the better or taking tablets for life. If you have hypertension but you cannot go to see your doctor as frequently as you would like, you could always purchase a home blood pressure monitor and keep tabs on your blood pressure yourself.

The best sort to get is an automatic digital monitor with a self-inflating cuff. It ought to also have a pulse monitor and a number of memories, although you can always use good old-fashioned pen and paper. They are not expensive any more and ought to cost between $30 and $100.

Some have a lifetime guarantee and are as accurate as your doctor's sphygmomanometer, which is the gold standard of blood pressure monitors. You should take your readings at the same time each day (or two or three times a day at the same times) and make a record of it or them. In this way you can compare your progress (or lack of it).

The first thing to do is quit smoking (if you smoke, obviously) and then cut down on heavy drinking sessions, if you do that). Doing that will improve your general health whether you have high blood pressure or not.

The next thing to do is to reduce your weight, if you are overweight by dieting and exercise. If you are not overweight, you will still need to raise your degree of exercise and change your diet for the following reasons. Exercise decreases your blood pressure and too much salt (also known as sodium) will increase your blood pressure.

So, whichever way you look at it, you will need to exercise more and take on a low-sodium diet. One of the methods of reducing sodium in your diet is by eating fresh fruit and vegetables and stop eating canned and other fast foods, which are stuffed with salt.

These lifestyle alterations are not easy, so if you have to take some of them on board, think about getting help. For example, you could get patches to help you quit smoking. You could visit the pub less often or simply go there later in the evening. You could ask your spouse to go on the diet too or you could join a support group on or off line.

There really are lots of resources out there to help you circumvent hypertension, but if you just cannot be bothered, then pop along to your physician's and order your first batch or high blood pressure tablets and be certain to make a repeat appointment, because you will be going back and fore for the rest of your life.




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