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Now that you have lost weight, reduced your daily intake of salt, moderated your alcohol intake and  are managing the stress/emotions in your life; Rob Woodgate’s (Rob is the co-founder of the hypnotension programme) 5 th tip to avoid high blood pressure is to exercise or as i prefer to call it; be more active.

Being physically active is one of the most important things you can do to prevent or control high blood pressure. So much so that one researcher of healthy aging has called exercise the ‘closest thing to the fountain of youth’.

Exercise keeps your blood vessels healthy, which improves blood circulation, and it also eats up blood sugars, lowering the risk of diabetes and helping you lose excess weight.

It can also mop up ‘stress hormones’ such as cortisol, and increases the level of endorphins, which are your body’s ‘feel-good’ chemicals.

This not only has a positive effect on lowering blood pressure but also helps your sleep, mood and energy levels.

It doesn’t take a lot of effort to become physically active. All you need is 30 minutes of moderate-level physical activity on three or more days of the week. Examples of moderate activities are brisk walking, cycling, gardening and housework.

Even office bound people can find ways to build up to moderate activity levels. Parking a few streets away from the office, taking the stairs instead of the lift, and taking a brisk lunchtime stroll are all great ways to build up your activity levels without changing your routines too much.

Studies have shown that people who exercise, on average, live significantly longer than those who don’t, and one study showed that the onset of initial disability in people who exercised was 16 years later than those who didn’t.

Having high blood pressure can leave you feeling uncertain and worried about your future. Making these lifestyle changes can help put you back control and can make a real difference.

Just remember to praise yourself for each positive step you take towards lowering your blood pressure and accept that you’ll make slip-ups along the way. Go easy on yourself, learn from your mistakes, and then move on.

If you lack the desire or motivation for exercise we may be able to help.

Learn to manage stress….

Now that you have lost weight, reduced your daily intake of salt and moderated your alcohol intake Rob Woodgate’s (Rob is the co-founder of the hypnotension programme) fourth tip to avoid high blood pressure is to deal with emotional stress.

As part of the ‘fight or flight’ survival mechanism, our blood pressure naturally rises when we are under stress. Unfortunately, the stresses of modern living can’t easily be fought or escaped, leaving us in a constant state of emotional ‘red alert’.

Studies on working men and women in the USA, for example, found that those with most responsibility for running the home had significantly higher blood pressure than those who left it to their partner.

Emotional stress can be caused by many things, and not everyone reacts to the same triggers, so it’s important to discover your own triggers and take steps to reduce them.

Some people are emotionally tougher than others so if you need some professional help to manage the stress in your life listen to Mike’s story and contact us before high blood pressure becomes a significant health risk in your life.

Now that you have lost weight and reduced your daily intake of salt Rob Woodgate’s (Rob is the co-founder of the hypnotension programme) third tip to avoid high blood pressure is to drink alcohol in moderation.

Alcohol has a strong effect on blood pressure, and studies show that the risk of death is higher in men who drink 22 or more units a week and in women who drink 15 or more units per week.

Binge drinking, which is defined as 8 units a day for men and 6 units a day for women, causes dangerous spikes in BP too, so alcohol consumption is safer when drinks are spread over the week.

Like weight loss, studies have that found blood pressure reduces by around 1 mmHg for each unit-per-day decrease in alcohol consumption overall.

If you are overweight, alcohol may be a significant contributory factor; so by reducing your alcohol intake you should also benefit from weight loss too!

Many people use alcohol and/or comfort eating  as a coping mechanism for dealing with stress and other emotions so it may not be easy to make these changes without having alternative strategies in place for dealing with stress. If that is the case for you please contact us; we may be able to help.

In my next blog I will explain why STRESS can be a killer!

How to avoid High Blood Pressure (part 2)

Rob Woodgate (co-founder of the Hypnotension programme) shares his second tip on how to avoid hypertension.

Reduce your salt intake

Salt is essential for the health of our bodies. Unfortunately, most of us eat so much that it puts us at risk of stroke, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

Salt causes the body to hold more water than necessary, increasing the volume and pressure in the blood vessels and putting excessive strain on your body.

Studies give mixed results, as some people are more sensitive to salt than others, but generally a measurable risk is seen when a person consumes more than 2g of salt per day, which is far lower than the UK and US recommended upper limit of 6g salt (2.3g sodium) per day.

The secret to reducing salt is to look at the food labels carefully, and to avoid adding extra salt when cooking. If you are worried about food tasting bland, add more herbs and spices, though be careful with spice mixes as these can contain a lot of salt.

Hypertension (commonly referred to as High blood pressure) is a leading cause of death worldwide. However, it can be avoided with a few simple lifestyle changes. Over the next few days I am going to post some tips from Rob Woodgate (co-founder of the ‘Hypnotension’ programme – a natural way to lower blood pressure) which could literally save your life. 

According to the World Health Organisation, high blood pressure causes up to a quarter of all deaths worldwide and affects around one in three people. That’s over 16 Million people in the UK, and 50 million people in the USA.

Clinical guidelines define a blood pressure reading consistently around 115/75 as ‘ideal’, and hypertension is a blood pressure reading consistently higher than 140/90mmHg..

The first number in a blood pressure reading, known as the Systolic reading, is the pressure inside arteries when the heart is actively pumping blood through them. The second number, known as the Diastolic reading, is the pressure when the heart relaxes.

High blood pressure can strike at any age, but is more common the older you get. According to the statistics, even if you don’t have high blood pressure by the time you are 55, you still have a 90% chance of developing it later in life.

The good news is that 95% of cases of Hypertension can be prevented and even reversed with a few simple lifestyle changes. Here is Rob’s first tip to help you to take control of your blood pressure.

Lose any excess weight

Being overweight or obese can dramatically increase your chances of getting hypertension, as well as diabetes.

Even a modest amount of weight loss can slash the risk of hypertension by 25-35% and studies have shown that, on average, blood pressure falls by 1mmHg for every Kilogram (2.2 lbs) of excess weight you lose.

This means that if you are 25Kg (4 stone) overweight, you could bring your blood pressure from hypertensive levels back down to normal levels, just by shifting that excess weight.

To find out if you are overweight, simply calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI), which is your weight in Kilograms divided by the square of your height in metres.

If your BMI is over 25 or your waist measurement is greater than 40 inches for men or 35 inches for women, you may be carrying excess weight.

However, it’s not just overweight people that have high blood pressure. I will be posting more tips over the coming days and weeks.

I recently qualified as a ‘Hypnotension’ practitioner which means that I am now in a position to help you if you are one of the estimated 30% of the population who suffer from Hypertension (the medical term for high blood pressure). If, you are one of the 16 million people in the UK affected by high blood pressure you might be surprised to know that 90% have what is called primary hypertension. This means that a staggering 90% of cases have no known medical cause.

What appears to happen in many cases, is that someone experiences a stressful episode or trauma and the stress chemicals/hormones produced change the physiology of the body and one of the side effects can be high blood pressure. Typically your GP then prescribes medication to help lower your blood pressure and you are labelled as suffering from hypertension and continue to take your medication on an ongoing basis despite the fact that your circumstances may change to such an extent that stress is no longer having such a significant impact on your life.

Also the fact that someone has been diagnosed with this condition means that they worry about having it and its possible negative effects on their health which keeps the blood pressure high; it becomes a vicious circle.

A friend of mine had been taking a drug called Warfarin for over 8 years until he ‘blacked out’ recently, just as he was getting off a train and fell on to the platform and was concussed. Whilst under observation in hospital it was discovered that he didn’t need to be on warfarin and that one of the side effects was that it was probably causing the ‘black outs’ from time to time. Since coming off the drug he has felt so much better, more energetic, more positive and more motivated. The accident could have killed him; yet if it hadn’t happened he would have been none the wiser and possibly taken the drug for the rest of his life.

I met a Doctor a few years ago that believed everyone over the age of 50 should be prescribed a statin whatever their state of health; just as a precautionary measure. On that basis perhaps we should all take anti-depressants to ensure that we don’t get depressed!

If we are really serious about saving and preserving the NHS for future generations we need to find ways of getting people off of long-term medication where possible. Introducing programmes like ‘Hypnotension’ into the NHS could just be one of the solutions.