What helps against high blood pressure?

The most important points in brief

• It has been known for a long time that high blood pressure poses a serious health risk.
• Heart attacks, strokes and other diseases of the cardiovascular system are often triggered by high blood pressure.
• Anyone who suffers from high blood pressure must therefore see a doctor regularly.
• But there are also some things you can do privately to lower the values. Diet also plays a role.

One of the common health problems of our time is definitely high blood pressure. It is caused by many factors, often a combination of several. In any case, this includes the lack of exercise, excessive body weight, nicotine and alcohol, too much salt and a lot of professional and private stress. On this page you can read what you can do in addition to the measures prescribed by your doctor to lower your blood pressure sustainably.

Blood pressure can (also) be lowered with natural means

Again, high blood pressure is a dangerous condition, do not take it lightly and consult a doctor's office. What you are reading here on this page are supportive steps with which you usually only lower your blood pressure temporarily. Usually, drugs do the bulk of the work. If you read carefully what the causes of high blood pressure are or can be, you don't need a lot of imagination to find out how to get rid of the disease.

A long-term lack of exercise is usually noticeable before you suffer from high blood pressure, for example in your own stature. For this reason, it is quite important to check your own weight regularly, as the rule of thumb applies that a weight reduction of four kilograms on average can also mean a reduction in blood pressure of around four mm Hg. The often wrong or one-sided diet does the rest, but more on that below.

Stress, alcohol and nicotine are blood pressure drivers

Stress, both private and professional, also tends to drive blood pressure up. It cannot always be avoided in private surroundings, but at work we are often responsible for not taking breaks and not allowing ourselves enough relaxation or sleep.

It is now well known that neither alcohol nor nicotine have any positive effects at all; We all know by now that high blood pressure is the direct result. Even a week without nicotine drops the values ​​noticeably. With alcohol, women should consume a maximum of ten grams per day, men a maximum of 20 grams (this means pure alcohol, half a liter contains almost exactly this amount).

How foods control blood pressure

Salt is a great evil for blood pressure. Every teaspoon of salt that you bite back on each day lowers blood pressure by about four mm Hg. At the same time, there are foods that help lower blood pressure by eating or drinking them - such as beetroot juice. Half a liter a day pushes the systolic value by about five mm Hg for 24 hours.

Ginger as a cooking spice or infused with hot water also temporarily ensures healthier values. And there is even something for those with a sweet tooth, because a quarter bar of dark chocolate also helps lower blood pressure for a while - however, the cocoa content in chocolate should be 85 percent in order to achieve this effect.