Lowering high blood pressure at home

If you have high blood pressure (hypertension) it is important to keep it under control as it tends to worsen over time if you do nothing about it.

One of the best ways to keep blood pressure under control is exercising and looking after your diet, as this raises your heart rate and lowers your blood pressure levels, while also improving your fitness and reducing the risk of suffering from chronic diseases.

Exercises to lower high blood pressure

There are numerous types of training and exercises that you can do at home that will help you to raise your heart rate and bring down your blood pressure. Here are three simple and effective types of exercise that we recommend:

• Cardiovascular exercise: walking around the house, dancing, going up the stairs, exercise bike, Zumba, etc., there are numerous options. The important thing is to monitor your heart rate and breathing while you are doing it so that your heart rate does not go higher than recommended. With this in mind, it is best to do these exercises for at least 20 minutesa day,at a good pace. As the days go by and your stamina increases, your heart rate will go down and you will be able to increase the time and intensity.
• High-intensity exercise. This type of training consists of increasing your heart rate while doing a given exercise and combining thiswith rest periods (of 10 seconds) between sets to bring your heart rate back down.
• Relaxation exercises like yoga. In addition to helping you to relax, it improves your breathing, strengthens your muscles and helps you to lose weight, thereby lowering your high blood pressure.

If you practise yoga regularly, you will improve your balance and physical fitness. In fact, the ideal routine would involve doing these exercises every day along with at least 30 minutes of physical activity (aerobic and/or anaerobic).

And you must not forget to look after your diet, as both things combined are the best way to control your blood pressure.

Foods to lower your blood pressure

The most important thing is to follow a balanced and healthy diet, although with so much spare time on your hands it is far more difficult not to be tempted to snack between meals and eat things that are bad for you.

You must not forget that you need to lower your salt intake as much as possible, so you should avoid processed foods and snacks like crisps more than ever right now.

Instead, you should increase your intake of the following nutrients:

• Vitamin A. This is mainly found in tomatoes, peppers, apricots, mangoes, broccoli and spinach.
• Vitamin C. This is found in oranges, lemons, kiwi fruits, strawberries, spinach, watercress, lamb’s lettuce, etc. These are antioxidant foods that prevent the ageing of cells in blood vessel walls and help to lower blood pressure.
• Potassium. A mineral found in bananas, dried apricots, potatoes and tomatoes. It helps to regulate the excretion of water in the kidneys and therefore lowers your blood pressure.
• Calcium. It can be consumed in dairy products, broccoli, pulses and almonds. It helps to improve the quality of the walls of your arteries.

Also, remember that it is always beneficial to take natural food supplements that help to look after your cardiovascular health and lower high blood pressure, like Keriba Duo, which provides a high amount of natural antioxidants from fresh pomegranates and olives: hydroxytyrosol and punicalagins.