Lifestyle Changes to Manage Your High Blood Pressure

Lifestyle Changes to Manage Your High Blood Pressure

From: Heart & Stroke Foundation

There are two ways to control and manage your blood pressure: medication and lifestyle habits. Medication can help you control your blood pressure, but it cannot cure it. That's why it's important to make sure your lifestyle habits are healthy, too. Smoking, eating salty, fatty foods, drinking alcohol and being inactive are harmful to your heart and may also raise your blood pressure. Thankfully, making changes to your lifestyle habits are within your control, unlike your family medical history.

A full healthy lifestyle, including healthy eating, is part of the Canadian recommendations for the management of high blood pressure. The Heart and Stroke Foundation is involved in developing blood pressure guidelines, which are updated every year. To control your blood pressure and reduce the risk of heart disease, the guidelines recommend that you:

• Be active 30 to 60 minutes most days of the week.
• Choose the following more often: vegetables, fruit, low-fat dairy products, foods low in saturated and trans fat and salt, whole grains and fish, poultry and lean meat. Limit fast foods, canned or prepared foods, as they usually contain high levels of sodium.
• If you are overweight, losing about 10 lb (5 kg) will lower your blood pressure. Reducing your weight to within a healthy range for your age and gender will lower your blood pressure even more.
• Eat less salt by:
• limiting your use of salt in cooking and at the table
  o avoiding salty foods
  o choosing fresh or frozen food
  o avoiding canned or prepared foods that are high in salt
  o reading labels on food packages for sodium content
  o using other seasonings such as herbs, spices, lemon juice and garlic during food preparation

• If you drink alcohol, limit the amount to 2 drinks a day or less, with a weekly limit of 14 drinks for men and 9 drinks for women. Guidelines do not apply if you have liver disease, mental illness, are taking certain medication, or have a personal or family history of alcohol abuse, are pregnant, trying to get pregnant or breastfeeding. If you are concerned about how drinking may affect your health, check with your doctor.
• Be smoke-free. It is important to stop smoking if you have high blood pressure. Smoking increases the risk of developing heart problems and other diseases. Your home and workplace should also be smoke-free.
• Take your medication as prescribed.
• Monitor your blood pressure regularly.

Studies show that each lifestyle change you make has the potential to lower your blood pressure readings. Look at the chart below to see where you can make a difference.

Lifestyle FactorRecommendationsImpact on Blood Pressure (systolic/diastolic mm Hg)Physical ActivityEngaging in Moderate or vigorous physical activity 30 - 60 minutes / weeklowers blood pressure by 4.9/3.7 points
Weight ControlFor loosing weight, per kilogram lostlowers blood pressure by 1.1/0.9 points
DietBy following the dash diet *lowers blood pressure by 11.4/5.5 points
Sodium (salt) intakeBy reducing sodium intake by 1800 mglowers blood pressure by 5.1/2.7 pointsAlcohol ConsumptionBy reducing intake by 3.6 drinks per day
lowers blood pressure by 3.9/2.4 points

If your healthcare provider prescribed medication to treat your high blood pressure, take it as prescribed. While medication can get high blood pressure under control, lifestyle changes are really important, too.

* The Dash Diet

What are the DASH studies?

The DASH Diet is based on two studies, DASH and DASH-Sodium, that looked at ways of reducing blood pressure through changes in diet. In the DASH study, people were given one of three eating plans: a plan similar in nutrients to what most North Americans eat; the same plan but with extra vegetables and fruit; or the DASH diet, which is rich in vegetables, fruit and low-fat dairy foods and low in saturated fat, total fat and cholesterol.

The results were compelling. The diet higher in vegetables and fruit and the DASH diet both reduced blood pressure. The DASH diet had the greatest effect on blood pressure, lowering levels within two weeks of starting the plan. Not only was blood pressure reduced, but total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or "bad cholesterol" were lower, too.

In the DASH-Sodium study, participants were given one of three sodium plans: the DASH diet with 3,300 mg of salt (sodium) per day (a normal amount for many North Americans); 2,400 mg of salt (a moderately restricted amount); or 1,500 mg of salt (a more restricted amount, about 2/3 of a teaspoon). Blood pressure was lower for everyone on the DASH diet. However, the less salt people consumed, the greater the decrease in blood pressure. People who already had high blood pressure had the largest decrease in blood pressure.