today we're diving into a condition that 90% of you will develop at some point in your life and that's hypertension it's known as the silent killer and for a good reason so I'm going to tell you about 10 proven strategies that I recommend to all my patients to lower their blood pressure naturally without medications now to understand hypertension you have to understand how blood circulates in our body for blood to flow forward it needs to push against the wall of your blood vessels at all times just like water in a pipe but as you can
imagine that pressure is constantly changing when your heart contracts your blood pressure Rises to that top number the systolic blood pressure and when your heart relaxes between beats the blood pressure decreases to the lower number called the diastolic blood pressure but no matter the cause high blood pressure over time is extremely damaging to your blood vessels in fact up to 50% of heart attacks and strokes are caused by hypertension so now let's dive into the top 10 ways that you can naturally lower your blood pressure as you can imagine diet plays a big role in
your blood pressure and there's one particular diet that's proven to lower your blood pressure by an impressive five to six points the DASH diet which is basically what most people think of as a healthy diet eat more Whole Foods and lean proteins and eat less salt and processed foods one of the important recommendations on the DASH diet is to lower your sodium intake and I realized that sodium has become a bit of a controversial topic recently but the scientific evidence is clear clear if your blood pressure is high and you want to fix it naturally
you need to lower your sodium intake to a maximum of 2 G per day one common mistake I find my patients make when they're trying to focus on decreasing their salt intake is focusing on the salt shaker Believe It or Not added salt only accounts for a small amount of people's salt intake in reality 80% of your salt intake comes from processed foods and eating out check out this healthy looking Mediterranean Bowl honestly probably something I would order from restaurant and that one dish has more sodium in it than you're supposed to eat in the
entire day let me give you a real world example of how a modest decrease in sodium can have an unbelievable impact a few decades ago in Finland they passed laws requiring warning labels on high salt foods and promotional labels on healthy low sodium high potassium options and they made sure food still tasted really good even McDonald's was pressured into releasing a low sodium hamburger researchers then looked at the impact these policies had on the health of the nation and the results were astonishing over the next few decades sodium intake dropped by 30% and the average
systolic blood pressure dropped by 10 points but it gets even better in the middle-aged population death rates from heart attack and stroke decreased by 80% and life expectancy went up by several years for both men and women but it wasn't just sodium reduction that they focused on they also promoted foods high in potassium this is really important because you can almost think of potassium like an antidote to sodium where sodium stiffens blood vessels potassium relaxes them not only that potassium helps your kidneys get rid of excess sodium by peeing it out and Studies have shown
that by increasing the amount of potassium rich foods you eat like bananas oranges sweet potatoes spinach and beans you can lower your blood pressure by as much as 5 to seven points but be careful loading up on potassium isn't for everyone if you have kidney problems or if you take medications that cause you to retain potassium this is not the strategy for you so talk to your doctor before you make any drastic changes okay now on to exercise up until recently it seemed like cardio was the best way to lower your blood pressure but emerging
research is showing that other types of training may be even more effective this meta analysis from the bmj in 2023 looked at 270 different trials to try to figure out which exercises were most effective at lowering blood pressure naturally and the clear winner was isometric exercises things like wall squats or planks which lowered the systolic blood pressure up to eight points now if doing planks and wall it sounds like fun to you I'm so happy for you that's awesome but for the rest of us keep in mind that this study also proved that any type
of exercise you do will help lower your blood pressure high intensity low intensity cardio strength training it all makes a difference so find what works for you if you love this type of content then I want to invite you to become a vmd member you'll get access to bonus content monthly live streams one-on-one chats and these fun custom emojis so click this link above to join this amazing community of positive and curious minds now back to the video now if you're following the DASH diet and you're exercising regularly then you're probably also going to lose
some weight which is great because weight loss is another powerful tool for every 1 kilogram or approximately 2.2 lb of weight loss your blood pressure should decrease by one point now alcohol is a bit of a sneaky one it might make you feel a bit more relaxed which is why people are often surprised to learn that it actually raises your blood pressure especially if you're having more than two drinks per day and if you needed another reason not to smoke it also has a really big impact on your blood pressure not only does nicotine increase
your blood pressure but smoking also damages the inner lining of your blood vessels which causes them to stiffen and increases your blood pressure in the long term sleep is another important one less than 6 hours per night has been shown to increase the risk of high blood pressure and if you want to sleep more but you have trouble falling asleep I have a video where I walk through proven strategies to fall asleep quickly and I'll leave that link up here but some people can sleep the entire night and still feel exhausted the next day this
can be a sign of obstructive sleep apnea a condition where your breathing starts and stops throughout the night and it's actually one of the major causes of resistant hypertension so if you're really tired during the day even after getting a good good night sleep or if your partner tells you that you're sort of choking or gasping or really loudly snoring at night those would be reasons to see your doctor and talk about getting tested so what about stress the answer is actually less straightforward than you might think intuitively we all know that stress has a
serious impact on our body and it's true that acute stress can cause a brief elevation of your blood pressure when it comes to chronic stress the research isn't as clear and it seems like the biggest issue is probably how we cope with that stress whether it's eating more unhealthy food or drinking more smoking more all of that impacts our blood pressure so taking a moment to be mindful and think about how you're going to manage stress in a healthy way is really important okay and I'm going to throw this one in just for fun Studies
have shown that pet owners and particularly dog owners tend to have lower blood pressure and one small study showed that the effect of adopting a pet was even greater than a standard blood pressure medication okay so let's say you're doing all of these things and your blood pressure is coming down nicely what number are we actually aiming for and can you go too low the Sprint trial aimed to answer this question researchers compared a target blood pressure of 140 compared to 120 in a large group of adults who had high blood pressure and were at
an increased risk of heart disease and the results were groundbreaking the group with a lower Target had a 25% lower risk of heart attack and stroke and a 27% lower risk of death from small causes although the more intensive treatment did come with some trade-offs like higher side effect rates things like dizziness and kidney issues it's one of the reasons why some of the major guidelines have lowered their threshold for diagnosing hypertension from 140 over 90 down to 130 over 80 now the goal of this video is not to overwhelm you you don't have to
make all of these changes at the same time sustainability is key and adding in small changes over time can have a huge impact in the long run so I challenge you to pick one thing on this list that you're going to implement and leave a comment to let me know as a way of committing to it now even if you do everything right your blood pressure may still be elevated and that's where medications can be very helpful so if you've learned something valuable today then share this video with someone who might benefit from it high
blood pressure affects over a billion people worldwide and together we can raise awareness and Empower others to take control of their health so as always stay curious stay healthy and I'll see you in the next video so bye for now [Music]
