As for mild and light hypertensive patients, non-medication treatments are recommended while for severe and chronic hypertensive patients, the medicinal treatments should be incorporated with non-medication treatments so as to achieve the most desirable and satisfactory therapeutic effect.
Limit Your Sodium Intake
Salt intake correlates positively with the occurrence of hypertension (high blood pressure). The higher the salt intake in the blood, the higher the blood pressure will be and vise versa. Each additional of 1g of salt intake can lead to an average increase of 2mmHg in systolic blood pressure (SBP) and 1.7mmHg average increase in diastolic blood pressure (DBP). The daily intake of 20g of salt can give rise to a 30% of hypertension. In the Northern part of Japan, people prefer to take 30g of salt per person in a day, and thus the occurrences of hypertension, stroke are significantly higher than those who consume less salt. Their blood pressures are two times higher than the world average level, and thus this place has honored as “Kingdom of Hypertension” and “Kingdom of stoke.” Similarly, people in northeast China have high probability to suffer from hypertension as they consume much salt in their daily diet. Another report also showed that people in the Tibetan region, the Tibet Lhasa tribe has the first ranking of hypertension in the world, as most people there prefer to drink salt tea. On the contrary, people in Jamaica who consume salt less than 2g per day have not shown any complications of hypertension.
Many clinical laboratory experiments have revealed that excessive sodium chloride (salt) intake can worsen the cardiovascular system and the intake of salt is particularly detrimental to the blood viscosity of the elderly, which may finally give rise to the level of blood pressure. Therefore, patients should control the intake of sodium in order to stabilize or lower their blood pressure. Clinical experiments revealed that patients who decreased the salt intake from 10.5g to 4.7g in their diet had shown an obvious average decrease of 4 to 6mmHg in their SBP. For most patients, the daily salt intake should be limited to 6g (3ml of soy sauce equals to 1g of table salt), but for the elderly hypertensive patients, the daily salt intake should be limited to 4g.
World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended the salt intake per person shall not be more than 6g in a day. The salt here includes MSG, soy sauce, and foods that rich in salt content. We can help control the consumption of salt by living with “salt reduction” or “zero salt” strategy in our daily diet to prevent hypertension, and most importantly to curb the rise of blood pressure particularly for those who already have relatively high blood pressure in their existing health condition.
Drink Water Scientifically
Water hardness is closely associated with the incidence of hypertension. Recent studies from Japan and Korea have showed that hard water contains more calcium and magnesium ions, which are important substances to promote and regulate vascular smooth muscle cells systolic and diastolic. In the absence of these substances, our vascular tends to cramp and spasm easily, and finally leading to high blood pressure. Therefore, patients should drink hard water, such as natural spring water, natural mineral water, alkaline water and such. Among the water, alkaline water is the best remedy to treat hypertension according to the data analysis from the Japan sources.
Natural mineral water and alkaline water contain lithium, strontium, zinc, selenium, iodine, and other essential trace elements that benefits human health. Nevertheless, the boiling water may have significantly less of trace elements and minerals and thus it sometimes does not meet the standard of healthy water. Tea, other form of drinks that benefits hypertensive and cardiovascular patients as it contains polyphenols, antioxidants (helps excluding harmful chemical like chromium ion in human body), potassium, calcium, magnesium, zinc and trace elements such as fluorine. Therefore, patients are also encouraged to drink 4 to 5g of black tea or green tea a day to promote better health.
Physical and Psychological treatments
Physical treatment is helpful for hypertensive patients. Meditation is one of the methods that hypnosis the brain for thorough relaxation and peace of mind. This in turns helps lowering the blood pressure. Nevertheless, this treatment should be conducted under the guidance of experienced experts or specialists.
The patients should keep their minds in peace and free from any confusions in order to attain psychological balance. Negative emotions not only harm human health, but may also give rise to the level of blood pressure. Therefore, it is always better to go for positive thinking as it helps to improve the blood pressure. The emotion of either “too sad” or “too excited” may indirectly cause the rise of blood pressure, so patients should keep a balanced and tranquility mind by adopting moderate lifestyle.
