It seems that everybody more than the age of about forty is having problems with their blood pressure. There is such a thing as having low blood pressure but the problem sweeping Western society for the last twenty-five to thirty years is high blood pressure, which is also known as hypertension in medical terminology.

Hypertension is a dangerous medical condition which can kill if not treated, yet it is frequently an indication of leading a bad lifestyle, so a sufferer can usually avoid hypertension by making a couple of lifestyle alterations. The time to instigate these alterations is as soon as you can, because the changes are sensible ones, but young bodies can take more abuse than older ones, so it is a good concept to keep an eye on your blood pressure from your mid thirties.

Age and ethnicity are factors in hypertension but there is naturally nothing you can do about that, yet the other factors are good for everybody, because they merely involve living a better lifestyle.

Being overweight is a major factor in creating hypertension. The answer is obvious – if you are overweight, lose those extra pounds. Losing merely ten pounds can reduce your blood pressure a lot.

Being inactive is another major factor in creating hypertension and is obviously linked with being overweight. Therefore, you can kill two birds with one stone by exercising more in order to lose weight. Eating excessive amounts of sodium (table salt) is another factor in high blood pressure, so this offers another opportunity to ‘double up’.

While you are attempting to lose weight in order to help reduce your hypertension, incorporate reduced-sodium recipes into your cooking habits. There are lots of low-sodium or low-salt recipes on the Internet and once you have been eating low-sodium for a week or ten days you will wonder why you ever used salt in the first place.

Salt is of course in some foods more than others, so you will have to have some assistance in the beginning, but only not adding any salt or sugar to any of your food or drink is a decent beginning. Eating more fresh fruit and vegetables is another obvious thing to do. Strive not to use tinned foods as salt is frequently used to ‘pump up the flavour’ and preserve cheap ingredients in cans.

Smoking is not good for you. We all know that, but it also increases blood pressure and so does drinking too much alcohol on a regular basis. These are difficult lifestyle alterations to master, but you could at least cut down.

Stress, fear, anger, anxiety and sleeplessness are also factors that increase hypertension and it is easy to see that they could all be interconnected. It is often said that exercise reduces stress and so that may now have a triple benefit. If you suffer from stress, meditation or yoga may help you too.

In short, it is possible to do something about your hypertension. Some of the changes are not easy, yet just doing something on all these fronts will have an effect and maybe keep you off medication for the rest of your life.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on a number of topics, but is currently involved with work on foods for high blood pressure. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, just go to our website at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

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