Things You Should Do If You Are Hypertensive

Have you been worrying over something lately in such a way that your heart skips beating a number of times at any little sound? Have you been suffering from anxiety, or are you hypertensive already? Do you have children who make you scream and shout all day, making you end up with a headache before the end of the day? Are you always scared whenever your boss is in the office because he definitely would pour all the company’s responsibilities on your shoulders? Have you suffered from a major shock before? For example, have you experienced an accident? Or a robbery? And since then, have you been feeling sick and traumatized as a result of those events?

The end result of all of these is high blood pressure. When you are scared, when you scream, when you are shocked, something goes wrong inside your body, and if it is not adequately managed, it can become complicated. One of the things that go wrong in the body is the unhealthy rise of your blood pressure.

To explain further, a woman who was a passenger of a bus that almost had an accident. Take note, the bus ‘almost’ had an accident. It was one breath close to being crushed. The woman, just like anyone on a bus that almost had an accident, was scared and screamed with fear written all over her, and in the process, she lost consciousness. After the incident, she was rushed to the hospital and slipped into a coma for days and eventually died.

This woman had no scratch from the accident. She did not lose blood, she did not hit her head in the process, all that happened was ‘shock,’ and she passed out and later passed on from there. The shock from that accident shot up her blood pressure and gave an immediate result that led to her death. This is a part of what high blood pressure can do.

High blood pressure in medical terms is known as ‘hypertension.’ It is a health condition that damages your heart. It occurs when your arteries, which are passages through which your blood runs, become too narrow due to psychological stress, emotional stress, or trauma. Your blood pressure is measured by the amount of blood passing through your blood vessels, and the amount of resistance your blood meets on its way to your heart.

Are you interested in knowing how you can control and manage this without complications, know the signs your body gives when your blood pressure is high and know what exactly causes this hypertension? Then follow me through, to the end of this article, while I bring to your knowledge all you need to know about hypertension.

People Who Are Likely to Suffer From Hypertension

• People aged 45 and above
• People who eat excess salt and fatty foods
• People who have kidney diseases or diabetes
• People who do not get engaged in physical activities
• People who are obese and overweight
• Women who take pills for birth control
• Some pregnant women
• African-Americans
• Smokers and people who drink heavily
• People with hypertension in their family history

Causes and Risk Factors

Some of the causes of hypertension are self-inflicted. This is as a result of individual lifestyles. However, some other causes can be emotions, trauma, and mental stress. While other causes could be genetics and age. The following are causes of hypertension;

• Foods that are significant in salt and fat content; too much salt content in the body and fat/cholesterol are very harmful to health and can make you hypertensive.
• Too little potassium content or none at all in your food and body can make you develop high blood pressure. Potassium helps regulate your blood’s sodium level, and a lack of potassium in your body means there will be nothing to monitor and control your sodium level. Sodium is a major cause of hypertension.
• Genetics; it is possible that you would suffer from hypertension if hypertension is part of your family history. That is, you could suffer from it if your parents and your parents’ parents suffered the same fate.
• Health issues such as kidney problems, diabetes, and high cholesterol could cause hypertension.
• Lack of exercise can also cause hypertension. There are too many health risks attached to a lack of physical activities, and hypertension is one of them.
• Hypertension also has age as a risk factor. Research holds that people aged 45 and above are exposed to the risk of hypertension.
• Overweight and obesity; a study has identified many health issues attached to people being obese and overweight. Hypertension is one of the health issues connected to being overweight and obese.
• Medications are also causative agents of hypertension. Birth control pills have been discovered to be a significant cause of hypertension in older women.
• Stress is a significant shareholder in the hypertension business. Stressing yourself out will open your health up to hypertension.
• Excessive intake of alcohol and tobacco can make you hypertensive too.
• According to research, ‘race’ has also been found to be the cause of hypertension. The medical record says; ‘non-Hispanic black people’ are more likely to have a high blood pressure than people of other races.
• Sometimes pregnancy contributes to hypertension as well.

Symptoms of Hypertension

The signals your body send when your blood pressure is rising above normal include;

• Headache
• Shortness of breath
• Chest pain
• Dizziness
• Blurry vision
• Blood traces in the urine
• Nose bleeds
• Unconsciousness

Complications

• Heart attack
• Stroke
• Heart failure
• Dementia
• Difficulty in understanding/ damaged brain
• Torn vessels in the eyes
• Weakened blood vessels
• Most times, death
• Damaged arteries

Natural Ways of Lowering Blood Pressure

High blood pressure is not meant to be ignored. Ignoring it could raise your risk of suffering from stroke and heart disease. However, I bring you good news, the good news is, there are a number of ways you can lower your blood pressure at home naturally, even without medications.

Here are natural ways in which you can combat hypertension

• Exercise your body and engage in physical activities. Walking 30 minutes per day would help lower your blood pressure.
• Stop all foods that are high in sodium and fat until your blood pressure returns to normal. This automatically means you should eat little or no salt at all.
• Avoid alcohol for the time being. Stay away from alcohol, no matter how little the percentage is in that drink. You do not need alcohol during this period of treatment.
• Eat potassium-rich foods so that they can serve as monitors for the sodium level in your blood and also help lower your blood pressure that has risen. Foods rich in potassium include;

1. Vegetables
2. Nuts and seeds
3. Beans
4. Fruits; banana, orange, avocado
5. Milk and other dairy products
6. Stay away from caffeinated beverages.

• Try to manage stress. Plan your day, do not involve yourself in too many stressful activities. You can manage stress by listening to music while relaxing, sitting, and spending fun time with family and friends and seeing movies.
• Eat cocoa or cocoa products. These have been found to contain compounds that help relax the blood vessels.
• Watch your weight and lose weight if possible. Being overweight or obese will not help in the treatment process. Losing weight can help lower blood pressure significantly.
• Stop smoking; it increases the risk of high blood pressure.
• Take natural supplements like garlic extract, fish oils, hibiscus flower tea (Nigerian zobo), flaxseed, and black tea. These natural supplements can help lower blood pressure.
• Add magnesium-rich foods to your diet. Magnesium helps relax your blood vessels and helps regulate blood pressure.
• Cut sugar
• Finally, monitor your blood pressure.

Hypertension is a fast killer and a big depriver of general wellbeing. Taking measures to prevent and treat it are good ways to begin to live a hypertension-free life. Do not wait for the symptoms to get dangerous before you act as this could be very fatal. The causes of hypertension range from lifestyle to habits, genetics, age, medications, and health issues. Preventing and treating it involves lifestyle adjustments, adopting good feeding habits, and monitoring of blood pressure (this would prevent it from rising above normal or dropping below normal)

All that is needed to treat or prevent hypertension at home is discipline and consistency. Be consistent in following all the preventive measures and treatment process and report any strange feelings to your Doctor.