19/02/2025
Have you heard? Reversing hypertention can really be done quite naturally?!
When you think of high blood pressure, do you think of inactivity, eating unhealthily, drinking or smoking too much, or suffering insomnia?
Maybe you think it's a disease we get in our senior years? For most of us, I expect we don't even think about it at all since we have no signs or symptoms to suggest we should, right?
Hypertension is a serious medical condition and an early sign that something more serious could be going on. It significantly increases our risks of heart, brain, kidney, and other diseases and is a major cause of premature deaths globally (WHO).
Some people only get high blood pressure when they go to see their doctor or health professional and this is a psychological phenomenon known as 'Whitecoat Syndrome' where our nervousness or anxiety surrounding the doctor's surgery or hospital gets the better of us and our blood pressure increases quite suddenly and out of the ordinary.
A recent study posted to the journal 'Hypertension', noted that somewhere between 15 and 30 percent of people with high blood pressure at the doctor’s surgery might be affected by white coat syndrome.
However, this theory needs to be checked out more thoroughly to make sure we don't have an underlying health problem that lies undetected until we see a health professional so we associate the high blood pressure to seeing the doctor when it happens other times but we're just not aware of it.
I'd never had to think about my blood pressure up until my 50's. I did all the things expected of someone who should have normal blood pressure i.e., I ate a vegan diet, I exercised every day, I was normal weight, I didn't smoke, and drank alcohol in moderation. I was the epitome of health, some would say.
However, I was just touching 50, dealing with a lot of stress, and had recently been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, before I acknowledged that my blood pressure was indeed abnormally high a lot of the time and not due to White Coat Syndrome!
I recognised that the combination of having an underlying chronic inflammatiory disease, high stress, and eating a processed vegan diet high in salt, sugar and fat, were the reasons for my blood pressure being high. These were all things I could have taken more control of much earlier if I had known the symptoms!
Changes to health-related behaviours such as maintaining a healthy weight, adopting a healthy whole food plant-based diet naturally low in salt, sugar and fat, getting a good chunk of restorative sleep each night, managing our stress, incorporating physical activity into each day, and having better control of any underlying disease, are all effective evidence-based strategies in reversing hypertension naturally!
When you think of high blood pressure, do you think of inactivity, eating unhealthily, drinking or smoking too much, suffering insomnia, or having some other underlying health condition? Maybe you think it's a disease we get in our senior years? For most of us, I expect we don't even think about it
