How do you manage high blood pressure

How do you manage high blood pressure

Practice healthy living habits, like being physically active, to help prevent high blood pressure.

By living a healthy lifestyle, you can help keep your blood pressure in a healthy range. Preventing high blood pressure, which is also called hypertension, can lower your risk for heart disease and stroke. Practice the following healthy living habits:

Eat a Healthy Diet

Choose healthy meal and snack options to help you avoid high blood pressure and its complications. Be sure to eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Talk with your health care team about eating a variety of foods rich in potassium, fiber, and protein and lower in salt (sodium) and saturated fat. For many people, making these healthy changes can help keep blood pressure low and protect against heart disease and stroke.

The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) eating plan is a healthy diet plan with a proven record of helping people lower their blood pressure.1

Visit the CDC’s Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity website to learn more about healthy eating and nutrition.

Keep Yourself at a Healthy Weight

Having overweight or obesity increases your risk for high blood pressure. To determine whether your weight is in a healthy range, doctors often calculate your body mass index (BMI). If you know your weight and height, you can calculate your BMI at CDC’s Assessing Your Weight website. Doctors sometimes also use waist and hip measurements to assess body fat.

Talk with your health care team about ways to reach a healthy weight, including choosing healthy foods and getting regular physical activity.

Be Physically Active

Physical activity can help keep you at a healthy weight and lower your blood pressure. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommends that adults get at least 2 hours and 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, such as brisk walking or bicycling, every week. That’s about 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Children and adolescents should get 1 hour of physical activity every day.

Visit the website for CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity to learn about ways you can be physically active.

Do Not Smoke

Smoking raises your blood pressure and puts you at higher risk for heart attack and stroke. If you do not smoke, do not start. If you do smoke, quitting will lower your risk for heart disease. Your doctor can suggest ways to help you quit.

For more information about tobacco use and quitting, see CDC’s Smoking and Tobacco Use Web site.

Limit How Much Alcohol You Drink

Do not drink too much alcohol, which can raise your blood pressure. Men should have no more than 2 alcoholic drinks per day, and women should have no more than 1 alcoholic drink per day. Visit the CDC’s Alcohol and Public Health website for more information.

Get Enough Sleep

Getting enough sleep is important to your overall health, and enough sleep is part of keeping your heart and blood vessels healthy. Not getting enough sleep on a regular basis is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, and stroke.2 Visit CDC’s Sleep and Sleep Disorders website for resources on how to get better sleep.

References

  1. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Your Guide to Lowering Your Blood Pressure With DASH [PDF – 792K]. NIH Pub. No. 06-4082. Bethesda, MD: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; 2006.
  2. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Sleep Deprivation and Deficiency. (2019). https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health-topics/sleep-deprivation-and-deficiency. Accessed October 7, 2019.

How do you manage high blood pressure

You can measure your blood pressure at home with a home blood pressure monitor, or you can visit your doctor or nurse to have your blood pressure checked.

Learn steps you can take to lower your risk for health problems from high blood pressure (also called hypertension), such as heart disease and stroke.

Measure Your Blood Pressure on a Regular Basis

Measuring your blood pressure is an important step toward keeping a healthy blood pressure. Because high blood pressure and elevated blood pressure often have no symptoms, checking your blood pressure is the only way to know for sure whether it is too high.

You can measure your blood pressure at home with a home blood pressure monitor, or you can visit your doctor or nurse to have your blood pressure checked.

If you learn that you have high blood pressure, you should take steps to control your blood pressure to lower your risk for heart disease and stroke.

Manage Diabetes

Most people with diabetes—about 6 out of 10—also have high blood pressure.1 If your health care professional thinks you have symptoms of diabetes, he or she may recommend that you get tested.

If you have diabetes, monitor your blood glucose (also called blood sugar) levels carefully and talk with your health care team about treatment options. Your doctor or health care professional may recommend certain lifestyle changes to help keep your blood glucose levels under good control. Those actions will also help reduce your risk for high blood pressure.

Take Your Medicine

If you take medicine to treat high blood pressure or other health conditions, follow your doctor’s or health care professional’s instructions carefully. Always ask questions if you do not understand something, and never stop taking your medicine without talking to your doctor or pharmacist first. Stopping your blood pressure medicine without first talking to your health care team could lead to serious health consequences.  Learn more about blood pressure medicines.

Make Lifestyle Changes

If you have high blood pressure, you can help lower it by being physically active, eating a healthy diet, and making other lifestyle changes. Learn more about ways to prevent and manage high blood pressure.

Talk with Your Health Care Team

You and your health care team can work together to prevent or treat the medical conditions that lead to high blood pressure. Discuss your treatment plan regularly and bring a list of questions to your appointments.

Reference

  1. National High Blood Pressure Education Program. The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressurepdf icon[PDF – 223K]external icon. Bethesda, MD: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; 2003.

What should we do when someone BP is high?

If your high blood pressure is caused by lifestyle factors, you can take steps to reduce your risk:.
Lose weight..
Stop smoking..
Eat properly..
Exercise..
Lower your salt intake..
Reduce your alcohol consumption..
Learn relaxation methods..

Can drinking water lower blood pressure?

Something as simple as keeping yourself hydrated by drinking six to eight glasses of water every day improves blood pressure. Water makes up 73% of the human heart,¹ so no other liquid is better at controlling blood pressure.

When is blood pressure high enough to go to the hospital?

Call 911 or emergency medical services if your blood pressure is 180/120 mm Hg or greater and you have chest pain, shortness of breath, or symptoms of stroke.

What should I do if my blood pressure is 160 over 100?

Hypertension Stage 2 is when blood pressure is consistently ranging at levels greater than 160/100 mm Hg. At this stage of high blood pressure, doctors are likely to prescribe a combination of blood pressure medications along with lifestyle changes. This is when high blood pressure requires emergency medical attention.