A Guide to Managing High Blood Pressures

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High Blood Pressure- those dreaded three words that tend to creep up on us as we age. High Blood  Pressure of Hypertension is a cumulative result of the genetic tendencies we inherit, the changes in our metabolism due to compromised diet and lifestyle patterns, the baggage of stress and the pressures of life, possibly influenced by negative thought patterns too and also the polluted environment we live in.

High Blood Pressure or hypertension is cooked in a cauldron of life with all the above ingredients and stirred together with ignorance and lack of knowledge on how to offset it and what needs to be done in such a situation. So, we resort to medications. 

While medications may be needed in certain hypertensives, it’s not the first line of management. The first line of management is always to correct the balance to the right, towards wellness, towards holistic health. We first must learn to live correctly, living healthfully, take cognisance of the improvement of the blood pressures and treat only that which is elevated after a holistic living plan has been implemented. We must realise that anti blood pressure medications are taken over a long period of time and could have side effects. So, a good diet and lifestyle are essential prerequisites to managing high blood pressures.

Here is a quick guide to both preventing and managing hypertension:

Cut the Sodium and the salt in your diet: 

You must have heard this advice often, to lower the sodium. Let’s understand this; when we eat more of the mineral sodium - it is present in higher amounts in the blood. The kidney senses this sodium and takes measures to normalise it which can eventually lead to high blood pressures. High blood sodium also leads to increased blood volume and that too can eventually cause blood pressures to rise.

How to reduce Sodium in the diet then? Well, Sodium has two sources – One from the salt we consume, added while cooking and the other is from the ready to eat products, we consume which has either sodium or added salt in it.

Sodium containing superfluous foods that we need to urgently delete from the diet

Foods with large amounts of hidden salt – Papads, pickles, salted nuts, salted fried snacks (bhujjiyas, gathia, chips), foods canned in brine (Tuna, sardines)

Foods which have sodium added in the method of preparation or processing: All baked items – bread, biscuits, khari, toast, cakes and pastries – these have Baking powder added to it which contains large amounts of Sodium. So, a person having bread (yes even brown bread) in major meals and snacking it up with biscuits will be consuming large amounts of Sodium.