How to Lower Diastolic Blood Pressure
High blood pressure significantly increases the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke and kidney disease. High blood pressure is not usually something that you can feel or notice, and it can go undiagnosed because there are usually no symptoms.
Regardless, high blood pressure can lead to kidney damage, stroke or a heart attack. Therefore, it’s important you get your blood pressure checked regularly. Check with your GP or nurse how often to get it checked.
6 Natural Ways to Lower High Blood Pressure
How to Lower Diastolic Blood Pressure Quickly? Unfortunately, there is no quick way to lower blood pressure without medical intervention. The best way to lower blood pressure is with long-term behavioral changes—like reducing stress, getting better sleep, exercising, and eating a low-sodium diet—but this takes time. Certain medications can also help.
However, below are the very best six easy natural ways to lower diastolic blood pressure:
1. Regular physical activity
Try to do some moderate-intensity activity every day and build up to at least 150 minutes per week, in bouts of 10 minutes or more. Most of us know that being active is good for our health. But more evidence is emerging that even if you exercise regularly, spending a lot of time sitting down can be bad for you.
People who spend long periods of time sitting have been found to have higher rates of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and death from all causes. This was originally thought to be because those people were more likely to be obese.
2. Keep to a healthy weight
For some people, losing weight is all they need to do to get their blood pressure down to a normal level. Why do you want to lose weight? Perhaps you’ll be better able to manage a medical condition such as high blood pressure or diabetes, or you’ll have more energy to play with your grandchildren.
3. Eat a healthy balanced diet
Use the Eatwell plate to guide the proportions you include from each food group. In particular, include a variety of fruit and vegetables. Eating a healthy diet can help reduce your risk of developing coronary heart disease and stop you from gaining too much weight, reducing your risk of diabetes and high blood pressure.
It can also help lower your cholesterol levels and reduce your risk of some cancers. Even if you already have a heart condition, a healthy diet can benefit your heart.
A balanced diet
Everyone should aim for a well-balanced diet. Strict diets are hard to sustain long term and may not provide the balance of nutrients you need. Healthy eating isn’t about cutting out or focusing on individual foods or nutrients. It’s thinking about your whole diet and eating a variety of foods in the right amounts to give your body what it needs.
There are foods we need to eat more of, like fruit and vegetables, and others we need to eat less of, which are foods high in saturated fat, sugar and salt. It’s all about getting the right balance. Eating healthily can be tasty, simple and fun. It’s about making small, long-term changes and enjoying the food you eat.
4. Cut down on salt
Don’t cook with salt or add any to your food at the table, and cut down on processed foods, which contain a lot of salt. Salt could be sabotaging your health because of its sodium content, which is linked to high blood pressure. We do need some salt in our diets, but we’re eating an average of 8.6g a day rather than the 6g limit recommended for adults. The reason we need to restrict the amount we eat is because of the sodium content.
Eating lots of sodium is linked to high blood pressure, which in turn is a risk factor for heart disease. Replacing salt with a salt substitute will reduce the amount of sodium you add but won’t change your fondness for a salty taste. By banishing the salt shaker from your table completely you’ll be helping to protect your heart.
But more of a problem is the salt that we don’t add ourselves: a staggering 75 per cent of the salt that we eat is added before it even goes into our shopping baskets. This means that as well as having trouble controlling the amount we eat, we develop a taste for salt and this affects our expectations of how particular foods should taste. If the salt is suddenly cut out or even cut down, then food can seem bland, so we just need to re-tune our taste buds to enjoy a less salty flavour.
5. Don’t drink too much
If you drink alcohol, stick within the recommended limits. No more than 3–4 units a day for men and no more than 2–3 for women. Alcohol is a part of many peoples’ lives and can be hard to avoid. However, drinking more than the recommended amount of alcohol can have a harmful effect on your heart and general health.
For your health, it’s important to try to stay within the recommended guidelines of no more than 14 units of alcohol per week. That’s because drinking too much alcohol (more than the recommended 14 units) on a regular basis can cause:
- abnormal heart rhythms
- damage to your heart muscle
- diseases such as stroke, liver problems, vascular dementia and some cancers
- high blood pressure
- palpitations (when you suddenly become aware of your heartbeat pounding or beating more quickly than usual)
- weight gain from the calories in alcohol and unhealthy food choices when drinking.
6. Take your medicines as prescribed
Most people will need to take more than one type of medicine to control their blood pressure. Don’t stop taking your medication without consulting with your GP first.
Understanding your blood pressure
Blood pressure is the pressure of the blood in your arteries. You need a certain amount of pressure to keep the blood flowing around your body. Your heart pumps blood through the arteries, by contracting and relaxing.
Your blood pressure reading consists of two numbers usually shown as one on top of the other and measured in mmHg (millimetres of mercury). If your blood pressure reading is 120 / 80mmHg your doctor or nurse may refer to it as “120 over 80”.
The first (or top) number represents the highest level that your blood pressure reaches when your heart contracts and pumps blood through your arteries – known as your systolic pressure. The second (or bottom) number represents the lowest level your blood pressure reaches as your heart relaxes between beats – your diastolic pressure.
High blood pressure – or hypertension – means that your blood pressure is constantly higher than the recommended level.
Unless your doctor tells you otherwise, your blood pressure should be below 140/ 90. If you have heart and circulatory disease (such as coronary heart disease or stroke) or diabetes or kidney disease, then your blood pressure should be below 130 / 80. In England, nearly half of all patients being treated still have uncontrolled blood pressure.