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18 Effective Ways To Lower Your Blood Pressure
Medications can help lower blood pressure, but many other remedies can help. Options include doing more exercise, improving your sleep, eating garlic, and limiting your sugar and alcohol intake.
High blood pressure (hypertension) often has no symptoms but is a major risk of heart disease and stroke.
Most people's target blood pressure will be below 120/80 mm Hg. If a person's blood pressure is 130/80 mm Hg or more, it is high.
A reading of 120–129 over less than 80 is elevated blood pressure. This means you're at risk of developing high blood pressure. Your doctor may recommend some lifestyle tips for managing your blood pressure so that it doesn't become too high.
Here are 18 effective ways to lower your blood pressure levels.
Research suggests that both aerobic and resistance exercise can help delay or manage blood pressure, and that after exercising, blood pressure may be lower for up to 24 hours after.
Regular exercise means you regularly increase your heart and breathing rates. Over time your heart gets stronger and pumps with less effort. This puts less pressure on your arteries and lowers your blood pressure.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend doing at least 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity exercise per week, or around 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. For children and teens, the CDC recommend 1 hour of exercise per day.
Tips for increasing your activity levels include:
Why is regular exercise good for you?
Having additional body weight puts a strain on the heart and the cardiovascular system. This can raise blood pressure.
If your body mass index (BMI) is 25 or over, losing 5–10 pounds can help reduce your blood pressure. It can also lower the risk of other health problems.
The three key ways of doing this are to:
Get some tips on losing weight here.
Increasing your potassium intake and cutting back on salt can help lower your blood pressure.
A high salt intake can increase the risk of blood pressure, while reducing salt intake lowers it. Experts don't know exactly why this happens, but water retention and inflammation in the blood vessels may contribute.
Potassium helps the body eliminate salt and eases tension in your blood vessels.
High potassium foods include:
However, a high potassium intake may be harmful to people with kidney disease, so talk with your doctor before increasing your potassium intake.
Nutrition labels can help you decide which foods to eat and which to avoid. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers a sodium listing of 5% as low, while 20% or more is high.
What effects does potassium have on the body?
Processed foods are often high in salt, added sugar, and unhealthy fats. They may lead to weight gain. All these factors can contribute high blood pressure.
Examples include:
Foods labeled low fat may be high in salt and sugar to compensate for the loss of fat. Fat is what gives food taste and makes you feel full.
Eating less processed food will help you eat less salt, less sugar, and fewer refined carbohydrates. All of this can result in lower blood pressure.
What's the difference between highly processed foods and healthy foods?
Smoking can affect your all-around health, including your blood pressure.
In the long term, the chemicals in tobacco can increase your blood pressure by:
The hardened arteries cause higher blood pressure.
The chemicals in tobacco can affect your blood vessels even if you're around secondhand smoke.
One study showed that nonsmokers in areas with smoke-free restaurants, bars, and workplaces had lower blood pressure than nonsmokers in areas without smoke-free policies.
Get some tips here for stopping smoking.
Finding ways to manage stress is important for your health and your blood pressure.
Kristin Currin-SheehanMANAGING HIGH BLOOD PRESSUREFor me, stress and blood pressure are a direct correlation, and I have a high-stress home life (the blended family life has never a dull moment and isn't for everyone). I was originally diagnosed with high blood pressure after a hospitalization due to its symptoms. I was told it was early onset and brought on by overuse of ibuprofen. I had developing and intensifying neck and trapezius pain due to a physical job and was taking 800mg every 4 to 5 hours for a couple of years, most days. I take amlodipine 5mg now.
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Ways of relieving stress depend on the individual but can include:
Get some tips here for relieving stress.
Dark chocolate typically contains 70–85% cacao.
Cacao contains flavonoids, an antioxidant that may help lower blood pressure. These flavonoids may help dilate, or widen, your blood vessels.
However, the American Heart Association notes that while eating a little dark chocolate is unlikely to be harmful, the amount a person is likely to eat per day will probably not provide enough flavonoids to produce health benefits.
Chocolate that is high in sugar, fat, or calories may not be beneficial.
Does dark chocolate have other benefits?
Some herbal medicines may help lower blood pressure. However, more research is needed to identify the doses and components in the herbs that are most useful.
Some plants and herbs that people use to lower blood pressure include:
There is not enough evidence to confirm that herbal remedies can help manage blood pressure.
Always check with your doctor or pharmacist before taking herbal supplements. They may interfere with your prescription medications.
Learn more about herbal remedies for high blood pressure.
Sleep deprivation may increase the risk of high blood pressure.
One reason may be that your blood pressure typically dips when you're sleeping. If you don't sleep well, you may not experience this phase.
Tips for sleeping well include:
Get some tips on sleeping well.
Fresh garlic or garlic extract may help lower blood pressure.
One review found that for people with high blood pressure, garlic supplements reduced their systolic blood pressure by up to about 5 mm Hg and their diastolic blood pressure by up to 2.5 mm Hg.
Can you eat raw garlic?
A 2015 study of data for over 1,300 people suggested that people who eat a higher protein diet had a 40% lower long-term risk of high blood pressure. Those who combined this with a high fiber intake had a 60% lower risk.
This was true whether the protein was animal or plant based.
Previous studies had already suggested that consuming protein may lower blood pressure in the short term.
High-protein foods include:
Anyone considering switching to a high protein diet should first speak with a doctor, as it may not be suitable for everyone. It is also essential to balance different types of protein and to balance protein foods with other items.
How much protein do you need per day?
Supplements that may help manage blood pressure include:
However, there is not enough evidence to confirm that most supplements can manage blood pressure.
Always check with a doctor before using a supplement, as not all supplements are safe for everyone. They may worsen other conditions or interact with existing drugs.
Learn more about supplements that may lower blood pressure.
A 2020 review found that consuming 30 g or more of alcohol appears to increase the heart rate for up to 24 hours. Blood pressure, meanwhile, tends to fall for the first 12 hours but then increases.
A standard drink contains around 14 grams of alcohol.
Despite the hype, drinking a lot of red wine is not beneficial for heart health, according to the American Heart Association.
They suggest limiting alcohol intake to two standard drinks per day for males and one per day for females.
A drink is:
How does alcohol affect the body?
People who usually consume 1–3 cups of coffee per day are unlikely to experience a rise in blood pressure.
However, your blood pressure might go up if you consume a lot of coffee or even a small amount when you are not used to it.
In contrast, high-caffeine energy drinks may increase blood pressure and, with that, the risk of cardiovascular problems. Experts discourage the consumption of energy drinks, especially among minors with existing health conditions.
If you find that caffeine is affecting how you feel, you might want to try decaffeinated coffee.
Is caffeine good or bad for health?
Some research suggests that drinking 550 milliliters (ml) of water within 2 hours of waking up and another 550 ml 2 hours before bedtime may help reduce blood pressure. However, more research is needed.
Water can boost overall health and may have many other benefits.
How much water do you need each day?
If your blood pressure is very high or doesn't decrease after making these lifestyle changes, your doctor may recommend prescription drugs, depending on your blood pressure level and other factors.
Talk with your doctor about possible medications and what might work best for you.
Which medications can manage high blood pressure?
What will bring blood pressure down quickly?This will depend on the cause and any existing diagnoses you have. Sitting quietly and doing breathing exercises might help. A person with an existing diagnosis may need to take their prescribed medication. If your blood pressure is over 180/120 mm Hg, or if either of these numbers is over, you may need emergency medical treatment.
What are 7 ways to lower high blood pressure?Apart from medication, there are many natural ways to lower blood pressure.
They include:
There is a strong link between salt intake and high blood pressure, and reducing salt in the diet can help lower the risk of hypertension and its complications.
How much salt do you need each day?
High blood pressure increases the risk for a number of health conditions. People can often prevent it or manage it at home through exercise, dietary choices, stress management, and other strategies.
If home remedies do not help, or your blood pressure is very high, it's best to see a doctor.
Read this article in Spanish.
A List Of 11 Blood Pressure Medications
Dozens of different medications can help treat high blood pressure (hypertension). These medications are called antihypertensives and are divided into many different categories, each of which works differently.
High blood pressure can lead to many serious health problems, such as heart attack, heart failure, stroke, and kidney disease. Treating high blood pressure early is important in preventing these and other problems.
With so many medication options available, finding the best one for you may take some time and patience. A doctor will work with you to find the best treatment plan for you, which may include one or more medications.
The following chart summarizes the major classes of blood pressure medications, times they're likely to be prescribed, and their side effects.
Diuretics are some of the most commonly used drugs for treating high blood pressure. They help the kidneys get rid of excess water and sodium, or salt. This reduces the volume of blood that needs to pass through your blood vessels, which lowers your blood pressure.
There are three major types of diuretics:
Discover everything you need to know about diuretics, their types, and specific examples.
In certain situations, your body makes hormones called catecholamines. These hormones can bind to parts of cells called alpha receptors. When this occurs, your blood vessels narrow, and your heart beats faster and with more force. These actions cause your blood pressure to rise.
Alpha-blockers work by blocking catecholamines from binding to alpha receptors. As a result, blood can flow through the blood vessels more freely, and your heart beats normally. This helps lower your blood pressure.
Alpha-blockers include doxazosin (Cardura, Cardura XL), prazosin (Minipress), and terazosin (Hytrin).
These medications perform the opposite function of alpha-blockers. A blocker (antagonist) is a drug that binds to the receptor, preventing it from triggering any responses.
An agonist, on the other hand, is a drug that binds to the same receptor and stimulates it in a way that's similar to that of the primary chemical. The primary chemicals, in this case, are alpha-1 or alpha-2 proteins. This calms the sympathetic nervous system, which leads to less production of adrenaline and lower blood pressure.
An example of an alpha-2 agonist is methyldopa. Examples of alpha-1 agonists are phenylephrine (Sudafed PE) and pseudoephedrine (Sudafed).
Another type of alpha receptor agonist is sometimes classified separately as central agonists.
Central agonist medications keep the brain from sending messages to the nervous system telling it to release catecholamines. As a result, the heart doesn't pump as hard, and blood flows more easily, lowering blood pressure.
Methyldopa (Aldomet) is also considered a central agonist, as are clonidine (Catapres) and guanfacine (Tenex).
Beta-blockers work by blocking the actions of hormones in your body that stimulate your heart. This allows your heart to beat with less speed and force, leading to a decrease in blood pressure.
Beta-blockers can further be divided as follows:
In addition, some beta-blockers have a combined effect. Combined alpha- and beta-blockers block the binding of catecholamine hormones to both alpha- and beta-receptors.
Discover everything you need to know about beta-blockers, their types, and specific examples.
ACE inhibitors keep the body from making a hormone called angiotensin II, which causes blood vessels to narrow. These medications lower blood pressure by helping constricted blood vessels expand to let more blood through. ACE inhibitors aren't safe to take during pregnancy.
Discover everything you need to know about ACE inhibitors, their types, and specific examples.
This class of drugs also protects the blood vessels from angiotensin II. In order to tighten blood vessels, angiotensin II must bind with a receptor site. ARBs prevent that from happening. As a result, blood pressure is lowered.
Like ACE inhibitors, ARBs aren't safe to take during pregnancy.
Discover everything you need to know about ARBs, their types, and specific examples.
To move, all muscles need calcium to flow in and out of the muscle cells. Calcium channel blockers help block calcium from entering the smooth muscle cells of the heart and blood vessels. This makes the heart beat with less force and helps blood vessels relax. As a result, blood pressure decreases.
There are two categories of calcium channel blockers:
Discover everything you need to know about calcium channel blockers, their types, and specific examples.
Vasodilators relax the muscles in the walls of blood vessels, especially in small arteries called arterioles. This widens the blood vessels and allows blood to flow through them more easily. As a result, blood pressure falls.
Discover everything you need to know about vasodilators, their types, and specific examples.
Aldosterone receptor antagonistswork by blocking a chemical called aldosterone. This action reduces the amount of fluid your body retains, which helps lower your blood pressure.
Aldosterone receptor antagonists include eplerenone (Inspra) and spironolactone (Aldactone).
Another type of blood pressure medication is called a direct renin inhibitor (DRI). DRIs block a chemical in your body called renin. This action helps widen your blood vessels, which lowers your blood pressure.
The only type of DRI that's currently available in the United States is aliskiren (Tekturna).
Peripheral adrenergic inhibitors stop neurotransmitters in the brain from conveying a signal that causes the heart muscle to constrict. This helps lower your blood pressure.
Examples include guanadrel (Hylorel), guanethidine monosulfate (Ismelin), and reserpine (Serpasil).
There are times when you may need to take more than one type of blood pressure medication. Most commonly, this occurs when:
Can exercise help lower my high blood pressure?Regular exercise strengthens the heart and makes it work more efficiently, leading to lower blood pressure. That said, speak with a doctor about making lifestyle changes to help manage your blood pressure. These include reducing your salt intake, quitting smoking if you smoke, and limiting alcohol consumption.
What is the most common blood pressure medication?Thiazide or thiazide-like diuretics are often prescribed as the first-line treatment for high blood pressure.
Specifically, the most commonly prescribed blood pressure medications are the ACE inhibitor lisinopril (Prinivil and Zestril), the DHP calcium channel blocker amlodipine (Norvasc), the beta-blocker metoprolol (Lopressor), and the thiazide diuretic hydrochlorothiazide.
What is the best blood pressure medication with the least side effects?The best blood pressure medication with the fewest side effects will be different for every person, as there are many factors that help determine this.
That said, ACE inhibitors, ARBs, thiazide diuretics, and DHP calcium channel blockers tend to be prescribed in many cases. Each hypertensive medication comes with some chance of side effects, but each may affect different people differently.
High blood pressure is a serious condition that requires treatment to prevent more severe health problems.
Don't worry if you're confused by all of your medication options. A doctor can tell you which drugs might work best for you. Together, you can put together a treatment plan to manage your blood pressure.
Read this article in Spanish.
What Is Cardiovascular Disease — Exactly? This Definition And Warning Signs Could Save Your Life
As you go through your day, you may not think about your heart, the organ central to your life as it pumps blood throughout your body. But that can change quickly if you experience a potentially frightening heart health wake-up call. Maybe a friend or relative has died unexpectedly of a heart attack. Or you have some unusual chest pain or feel palpitations and wonder if your own ticker has a problem. Perhaps, like countless others, you get news from your doctor that tests show you are at risk for — or already have — heart disease.
There's no doubt that concern about your heart health can make you feel vulnerable and spark worries about your mortality. But consider this: Having a warning about your heart isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, there's tremendous risk in not knowing the status of your heart and vascular health.
Despite the sobering statistics about heart disease — it's the leading cause of death in the US— there's good news. Researchers have found proven ways to lower your individual risk for cardiovascular disease. What's more, even if you already have been diagnosed with heart disease or a related condition, advances in treatments over the past decade are providing hope for longer and healthier lives for people who commit to following through with recommended treatments, including not only medications and procedures, if needed, but also lifestyle changes like exercising and getting weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol under control.
Defining Heart DiseaseHeart disease is an all-encompassing term for conditions affecting many parts of the heart and circulatory system, including congenital heart defects, glitches in the heart's electrical system causing abnormal rhythms (like atrial fibrillation), problems with heart valves, heart failure, damage from infections like rheumatic fever, and cardiomyopathy. But the most common type of heart disease by far is coronary artery disease (CAD), which kills more than 370,000 people in the US each year.
CAD is primarily caused by atherosclerosis — deposits of plaque (made up of cholesterol and other substances) that build up in the coronary arteries, the major blood vessels that supply your heart with blood, oxygen, and nutrients. The plaques narrow arteries and can compromise blood flow, which can eventually result in a heart attack.
Researchers believe plaque starts when an artery's inner lining becomes damaged, likely from inflammation. Causes include high blood pressure and elevated levels of fats found in the blood (primarily triglycerides and the "bad" cholesterol known as LDL). Smoking is also linked to atherosclerosis, according to the American Heart Association.
"Cardiovascular disease can affect your whole vascular system, causing cerebral vascular disease [which affects the arteries going to the brain] and coronary artery disease," says cardiologist Laurence Sperling, MD, director of the Emory Heart Disease Prevention Center in Atlanta.
As plaque increases over many years, narrowed artery walls make it harder for blood to flow through your body. If your heart muscle doesn't get enough blood, you might experience the pain known as angina, a warning sign of heart disease. In fact, it's the most frequent symptom of CAD, characterized by squeezing or pressure-type pain in the chest (and sometimes the shoulders, arm, neck, back, or jaw).
Stable angina comes and goes, with symptoms most often occurring during physical activity or periods of stress. Nitroglycerin is prescribed for angina patients to use during these attacks because it widens blood vessels, aiding blood flow and relieving symptoms. However, unstable angina (chest pain occurring at rest for no known reason) is a medical emergency and can indicate an impending heart attack.
People who are unaware they have cardiovascular disease may be taken by surprise when a heart attack strikes. Plaque in an artery ruptures, triggering the formation of a blood clot and shutting off the blood flow through the artery. The heart muscle is starved for oxygen, a condition known as ischemia.
Although cardiovascular disease is typically equated with the heart, it can affect an artery carrying blood to the brain the same way it affects a heart-connected artery. While heart attacks caused by cardiovascular disease can create sudden chest pain, a stroke from cardiovascular disease can lead to a sudden, severe headache. As the blood supply to the brain is blocked, an ischemic stroke occurs. Symptoms often include sudden numbness of the face, leg, or arm on one side of the body, confusion, and balance and vision issues.
Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) also results from atherosclerosis, blocking blood flow and oxygen to the arm and leg muscles, resulting in leg pain, numbness, and swelling in the ankles and feet. "Cardiovascular disease can even affect capillaries (the smallest blood vessels in the body)," Dr. Sperling points out.
Signs of TroubleAtherosclerosis doesn't come out of the blue; it develops over many years and can sometimes start in childhood. So how do you find out if you have cardiovascular disease without a health crisis? And if your heart and vascular system isn't seriously clogged with plaque, how can you keep it that way? Cardiologists have simple and high-tech ways to answer those questions.
To look for warning signs that you may have risk factors for cardiovascular disease — or some degree of the condition — your doctor will take a family history to find out if any close relatives have had heart attacks or strokes (it can have a genetic component) and a personal history. You might have existing health conditions that raise the risk for cardiovascular disease, especially type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Your diet, whether you exercise regularly or not, and whether you drink alcohol, smoke, or indulge in recreational drugs are also factors that all play a role in cardiovascular risk.
Standard cardiovascular risk assessment tests include blood pressure readings, a calculation of your body mass index (a measure of body fat based on height and weight) to see if you are carrying excess pounds, and blood tests to check for high cholesterol, triglyceride levels, and diabetes. Inflammation from many causes, not just cardiovascular disease, increases C reactive protein (CRP) in your blood. Your doctor may order a test to measure CRP as part of an overall assessment.
Even without overt symptoms, you might have signs that suggest a cardiovascular problem, including shortness of breath, swelling of the lower legs, and unusual fatigue.
Depending on your age and other factors, your doctor may run some tests to check your heart health, including an EKG to measure the electrical activity and regularity of your heartbeat, an ultrasound or other cardiac imaging to create a picture of your heart, and an exercise stress test to determine how well your heart works while under physical exertion. If you have known or suspected cardiovascular disease, cardiac catheterization can check the inside of arteries for blockages that may need to be opened and stented.
Know Your GuidelinesResearch has shown that optimal management and prevention of cardiovascular disease means aiming for lower levels of blood pressure and cholesterol than those considered acceptable not too long ago. For example, the American Heart Association (AHA) and American College of Cardiology (ACC) have updated the definition of high blood pressure as a reading of 130/80, compared to the previous definition of 140/90.
The AHA and ACC's new cholesterol guidelines emphasize lifestyle factors including eating a healthy diet rich in vegetables and low in fat and sweets, weight control, and regular exercise to reduce cholesterol. When that's not enough, a prescription class of drugs called statins may be necessary. For those who have already experienced a heart attack or stroke, even newer or more powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs are available.
"High-cholesterol treatment is not one size fits all, and this guideline strongly establishes the importance of personalized care," notes Michael Valentine, MD, a Lynchburg, VA-based cardiologist and the president of the ACC.
Help YourselfWhether you have, or are at risk for, cardiovascular disease — or just want to keep your heart as healthy as possible — you need to be a key part of the "prescription."
"By being informed and understanding your own risk, you can be empowered going into your healthcare encounter, so you can work with your clinician on a plan to appropriately modify your personal risk," advises Dr. Sperling. "We know we can dramatically impact arterial disease. We can limit the progression of the disease, which will change the trajectory and reduce the chances of people manifesting overt, critical syndromes or events."
And while we may not eliminate cardiovascular disease, there is hope we can change the outcome. "The course of the disease can be reversed through a combination of behavior and lifestyle changes and sometimes the need for medical therapies, so it is definitely possible," says Dr. Sperling.
A version of this article appeared in our partner magazine, The Complete Guide to Heart Health, in 2019.
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