5 Ways to Lower High Blood Pressure Without Medication | The Cooking Doc®

have you been diagnosed with high blood pressure and are looking for ways other than medicines to bring your blood pressure down stay tuned i've got answers [Music] thanks so much for watching today make sure you subscribe to my channel hit that button and click that bell so you never miss a new recipe or a new health tip i'm dr blake the cooking doc i'm a board-certified nephrologist that's a kidney doctor and did you know that kidney doctors are the experts in treating high blood pressure you may think that it's a cardiologist but i will argue this forever that there's nothing better than a kidney doctor to bring your blood pressure down remember of course though that just because i am a kidney doctor i am not your doctor so this is just for informational purposes only this is not medical advice don't make any changes in your health regimen without talking to your physician or your medical practitioner now before we get to the top five tips to lower your blood pressure without medications let's talk about the elephant in the room medications so medications are an unbelievably awesome way to lower your blood pressure they will bring that blood pressure down if you take them regularly and i know there are a lot of barriers to taking those blood pressure medicines regularly such as side effects and cost and availability but if you got access to medicines if you can afford them and if your doctor is prescribing them take them they will work okay moving on now to the fun stuff the number one way to lower your blood pressure without medications exercise i like to think of exercise as a miracle drug because it has a benefit throughout the whole body now we don't know exactly what type of exercise and for how long you need to exercise to lower your blood pressure we do know that exercise helps and if you get moving and start today that will be a step in the right direction towards bringing that blood pressure down to a safe level and how much does exercise work well one study suggested that exercising five times a week for 30 to 60 minutes at a time we'll lower that top number of your blood pressure that systolic number by about three to six millimeters of mercury and that's about the same amount that a lot of that medications will work so you can get the same benefit from exercising in a lot of cases as you would from taking that first medicine i don't care what you start with as far as exercising walking biking jogging yoga it doesn't matter to me talk to your doctor make sure it's safe for you find out what works for you find out what you can start and continue for the long run and get moving today and then once you develop an exercise routine keep it going work harder increase your time increase your effort all that will help you in the long run number two and i say this with a lot of peace and love losing weight can help you lower your blood pressure now that's a lot easier said than done i know it's not easy to lose weight some studies suggest that lowering your weight by one kilogram or 2.2 pounds will lower your blood pressure by about one millimeter of mercury now that number has not been proven and is certainly not the case with everybody but we do know that obesity and weight gain raises your risk of high blood pressure so if we can keep that weight down it will definitely help you manage your blood pressure in the long run and i often tell people this and this is a key even if you can't lose weight try to maintain your weight by not gaining weight you're actually doing your body a lot of good not going up is a victory celebrate it will help your blood pressure number three if you're still one of those people that smokes and i know there are a lot of you out there that still smoke quit smoking when you take that drag of cigarette in your morning that stimulates something in your body called the sympathetic nervous system and that sympathetic nervous system makes your body go a little bit into overdrive so your heart rate goes up and your blood pressure goes up it can raise your blood pressure by up to 20 millimeters of mercury and that can last for 20 minutes so if your blood pressure is 130 and then you have that cigarette it's all the way up to 150. now if that's the only cigarette you smoke in the day your blood pressure will come down and you will be okay the rest of the day but let's face it who out there that smokes just has that one morning cigarette so if you keep smoking throughout the day every time you smoke that blood pressure will go back up and you will have continuous elevation in your blood pressure throughout the day and we all know that smoking also causes heart disease risk stroke risk lung cancer risk copd risk so there are lots of reasons to quit smoking other than to bring your blood pressure down we could just add that one to the list as well people often come into the office and say oh they want to get off their medicines well if you're smoking if you quit that smoking you may be able to come off something number four and this one is right up the cooking doc's alley but eat less salt a lot of you out there actually have hypertension that is sensitive to salt so lower sodium leads to lower blood pressure and if you watch any of my videos you know that i'm a true believer that over the course of time you can slowly lower the sodium in your diet you have to work to change your taste buds learn to cook at home stop going out to restaurants as often as you usually do you can bring your blood pressure down with a lower sodium diet check out my sodium playlist for lots more information about sodium salt and your diet and check out my book the cooking doc's kidney healthy cooking a modern 10 step guide to preventing and managing kidney disease for all kinds of great recipes with low sodium and lots of information about how to cut that sodium out of your diet lastly eat higher potassium foods now this goes for people who don't have high potassium in their blood and people who have advanced kidney disease meaning stage four or stage five or on dialysis sometimes have high potassium levels in their blood and so they have to lower the amount of potassium in their diet and so this is not information that applies to you but for everybody else a higher potassium diet can lower your risk of high blood pressure and lower your risk of stroke some of my favorite high potassium foods are sweet potatoes cooked spinach bananas oranges mangoes what are your favorite high potassium foods oh and tomatoes love me some tomatoes so high blood pressure affects up to 116 million people in the united states and up to a billion people worldwide that can increase your risk for a whole host of diseases anything from kidney disease to cardiovascular disease including heart disease and strokes to dementia there are a whole lot of things that high blood pressure can put you at risk for so if you can work to bring down your blood pressure then you can lower your risk of developing all of these different diseases so there's not a worldwide consensus on what high blood pressure actually means meaning what is the level of your blood pressure at which above that they call it hypertension or high blood pressure for a lot of people in a lot of organizations that number is 130 milligrams of mercury that's the top number the systolic number over 80. for others and for other recommendations that blood pressure should be under 120 over 80. so there are some discrepancies in what the actual definition of high blood pressure is and depending on your personal risk factors you may have a different blood pressure goal but the bottom line is we need to keep that blood pressure at least below 140 on the top and for a lot of you preferentially much lower than that thanks so much for watching i'm dr blake the cooking doc make sure you check out my website thecookingdoc.co subscribe to my channel like this video give me a comment share buy my book the cooking docs kidney healthy cooking a modern 10-step guiding to preventing and managing kidney disease if you like the information in this video and stay tuned we will see you next time you

Channel: The Cooking Doc

Views: 761,396

Keywords: kidney disease, nephrology, nephrologist, kidney health, health, doctor, kidney doctor, nutrition, ckd, kidney diet, diabetes, diabetic, salt, low sodium diet, diabetes diet, recipe video, recipe share, chronic kidney disease, kidney failure, dialysis, kidney disease cure, back pain, back pain symptoms, kidney disease symptoms, heart medication, Heart disease, stroke, smoking, quit smoking, los weight, diet and exercise, high potassium, bp, hypertension, kidney dietitian

Id: 3tm7ikZuRmE

Length: 8min 41sec (521 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 02 2022