Recently I was diagnosed as having high blood pressure or hypertension to give it its clinical title. What a shock! Having enjoyed generally good health all my life, I was rather alarmed to be told that I had a chronic condition like high blood pressure and that I needed to start taking blood pressure medicines to keep it under control. Whilst I’m not against allopathic medicines I was extremely reluctant to start the blood pressure meds having heard so much about their many undesirable side effects from various hypertension patients. My doctor suggested life style changes as a first step to lowering blood pressure levels. Such life style changes include increasing physical exercise, following a high pressure diet, losing excess weight, stopping smoking and reducing alcohol intake. These changes help to lower blood pressure naturally and hopefully keep you away from blood pressure medicines. At first glance these life style changes seem simple enough. I mean surely it can’t take much to eat more healthily, exercise more etc.?

How wrong could I be? Lowering your blood pressure naturally through life style changes requires a huge paradigm shift and requires commitment and tenacity. I found just sticking to the blood pressure diet quite difficult. I enjoy my food and the blood pressure diet requires giving up some rather delicious goodies! Anyway, having started on blood pressure drugs and experiencing the side effects is not pleasant either so I have now committed to achieving normal blood pressure levels through natural methods. The first change I have researched and am implementing is the dietary change and here I share with you what I have learnt about the key changes one needs to make regarding food consumption.

The first step is following the DASH diet recommended for hypertension patients. DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension and is universally recommended by health practitioners world wide. The focus of the DASH diet is on increasing fruits and vegetables consumption and cutting down on saturated fats [red meat, dairy etc.] The DASH diet also encourages intake of potassium-rich foods such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, bananas, spinach, certain nuts and seeds as a way of managing blood pressure levels. Cutting down on saturated fats means switching to healthier oils such as olive oil and dropping the butter. With regard to non-vegetarian foods I try to opt for leaner cuts of meat. In fact, I found it was better to cut out red meat altogether and instead choose the DASH recommended lean poultry and fish.

Another dietary suggestion for lowering blood pressure naturally is regular consumption of garlic, either through food or garlic supplements. Garlic is generally beneficial for heart health and is said to improve and maintain good blood circulation which in turn then also improves blood pressure levels. People suffering high blood pressure are also advised to cut down on their salt/sodium consumption. This can be quite difficult as salt is a great flavour enhancer. Using salt substitutes or low-sodium salt can help you adjust to eating less salt.

To summarise then, one of the key factors, in order to reduce blood pressure through natural means, is adjusting your dietary habits. This requires cutting out saturated fats [red meat and high dairy products], increasing your consumption of fruits and vegetables [especially potassium rich foods], regular consumption of garlic and reducing your salt intake. Take it one step at a time. Just start by cutting out red meat one week and then cutting out butter the next week and so on. Don’t rush to change your diet overnight. It doesn’t work and you will find it hard to adjust to such a drastic change. Keeping your end goal in mind will help i.e. avoiding blood pressure medication and reducing your blood pressure naturally. I will write about other ways of lowering blood pressure in another article.