5 Exercise Tips for Addressing Your High Blood Pressure

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Exercise can be beneficial for the body in many ways. It helps increase oxygen levels, control weight, and can help boost energy.

Regular exercise, even in moderate amounts, can also help to lower blood pressure. Light to moderate exercising helps raise your heart rate. As you engage in regulated breathing, your oxygen intake also increases, and the increased heart rate sends oxygen throughout the body more rapidly.

High blood pressure, known as hypertension, is not something that should be taken lightly. When left unaddressed, it can lead to heart disease and stroke.

Although existing health conditions may limit physical activity that is too vigorous, light to moderate exercise is often ideal; and while aerobic activity is often the best, it is generally ideal to start off small, so the body can adjust gradually. Starting off with high levels of activity can shock the heart and lungs.

As a general rule, if you are struggling to maintain a good rhythmic breathing, the exercising is too vigorous.

1. You Don’t Need To Join A Gym

Exercising does not mean you need to purchase a gym membership and spend all your free time there.

Increasing your physical activity can prove to be effective so there’s no need pay for a gym membership just yet. A brisk walk or a light jog every day for 30 minutes is usually enough to see an improvement in blood pressure over time.

If you do choose to make a few gym visits throughout the week, however, choose activities that are less strenuous. Use stationary bicycles and treadmills moderately and on low settings.

Utilize the availability of trainers that can help advise you on heart healthy techniques.

2. Group Effort

Many people find exercising to be a boring task. Think about ways that would make it fun.

Consider gathering with friends and family members for activities, even if it is just to have someone to talk with while you are exercising. You can be creative.

Even better, you can form a group with other individuals who also have hypertension so you can keep each other motivated.

Group activities can include walking, riding a bicycle, and a friendly game of tennis. Joining a dance class is another good activity. You do not need to engage with a group every day, but once or twice a week can certainly help you stay focused.

3. It All Adds Up

The main goal is to increase your activity to get your heart pumping.

Any activity that increases your heart rate for at least 30 minutes a day will count. By the end of the week, you will have a total of 3.5 hours of beneficial activity.

Little tasks add up as well. Active gardening involves tasks such as digging and moving around. Dancing around the house while you are cleaning is another small activity. Paddling in a kayak on a lazy river counts too.

If your day is too full to set aside a chunk of time for exercising, consider 5 to 10 mini-workouts.

Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Jog in place. Vacuum the house. Take a short walk around the parking lot at work.

These short workouts raise your heart rate and will total the amount of ideal daily exercise.

4. Avoid Heavy Weights

Generally, weight training is not often recommended. It can increase your heart rate, particularly with heavier weights, but it does so in a dangerously rapid manner.

With high blood pressure, it is important not to shock the heart with instant activity. If you engage in weight training exercises, start with with smaller weights and work your way up.

If you’re having problems doing more than 10 reps, your body is definitely not ready for that number just yet.

Pilates and Yoga

Pilates and yoga are both techniques that can be beneficial in lowering blood pressure.

Although both methods involve stretching and breathing, pilates focuses more on relaxation and strengthening of various key parts of the body, so attending classes from a provider such as pilates.co.nz can be an effective way to reduce pains by addressing muscular imbalances often caused by hypertension. Yoga on the other hand is more involved in increasing flexibility, which can address poor posture or a sedentary lifestyle brought on by suffering from hypertension. Both methods help increase oxygen levels and blood flow, as well as reducing stress levels. They can be good choices for supplementing other exercise techniques.

Overall, exercising with hypertension is not a hard thing to do – there are just certain precautions that should be taken but once these are observed, your body will thank you if you are consistent.

Lifestyle changes will also be necessary, particularly with your diet.

Remove processed and packaged foods from your diet and consume more watermelon and coconut water which are two popular natural remedies for hypertension.

Finally, it is important to talk with your doctor to discuss the safest activity level, particularly if other health issues are present or if you’re on medication.

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