Monitoring blood pressure at home

Stress, exercise, and even a few drinks the night before your doctor’s appointment can push your blood pressure up. So, it is often difficult to tell whether an unusually high reading at the doctor’s office means you have high blood pressure; or, if you have already been diagnosed with hypertension, that it is worsening or whether a work deadline has temporarily inflated your numbers.

High blood pressure should never be ignored, as it can lead to health complications, diseases like heart disease, retinopathy and chronic kidney disease, and even death. An easy way to keep tabs on your blood pressure levels and ensure they are not in an elevated range is with an at-home blood pressure monitor.

There are an array of blood pressure monitors out there that make tracking your readings easy, and once you know your numbers, you can take the necessary steps to get them within a healthy range.

While medications may be necessary to lower your blood pressure, reducing high blood pressure at home is possible with some dedication. Even if you are on doctor-prescribed medication, there are steps you can take to reduce your blood pressure naturally.

Natural Ways to Reduce High Blood Pressure

In addition to determining whether you need medications, which you should discuss with your doctor, healthy lifestyle choices can make a significant difference in reducing high blood pressure. Try incorporating the following changes and habits into your daily life.

1. Lose Weight if You Are Overweight

Weight loss is an important part of reducing high blood pressure, especially for people with obesity, as it is a strong risk factor for hypertension.

2. Exercise

Regular exercise not only aids in weight loss, but also helps decrease high blood pressure. Most doctors recommend at least 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise each day. If you cannot do 30 minutes, you can do at least 15 to 20 minutes a day, five to seven days a week. Some aerobic exercise options include walking, running, swimming, using an elliptical machine, cycling and playing tennis.

3. Decrease Your Salt Intake

Salt is the enemy of high blood pressure. When you eat too much salt, it increases the amount of fluid that enters the bloodstream and arteries from the surrounding tissue, which raises the pressure in the arteries.

4. Avoid Excess Caffeine

Drinking too much coffee or too many energy drinks that contain caffeine is not recommended for people with high blood pressure. Caffeine is a form of adrenaline. It constricts the arteries and raises the heart rate, both of which increase blood pressure.

5. Drink Water

Staying hydrated may be an important way to keep your blood pressure reading in a normal range. When you are dehydrated, the body produces stress hormones to maintain blood flow to organs. This response can increase blood pressure.

6. Ditch Alcohol

Alcohol can increase your body weight, deplete the body of magnesium and potassium, and dehydrate you. What is more, alcohol increases stress levels, which cause elevated blood pressure over time as well.

7. Quit Smoking

Smoking leads to constriction of the arteries acutely, and long-term use greatly contributes to the development of high blood pressure. Take the steps you need to quit smoking if you have hypertension.

keisha.hill@gleanerjm.com

SOURCE: American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology; Providence Mission Hospital in Southern California, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)