High Blood Pressure

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High Blood Pressure

Here’s something that ought to get your heart pounding: By age 55, about 30 percent of White American men and 20 percent of White women have blood pressure readings above the recommended maximum of 140/90. Blacks are even worse off; about half of Black men and more than 40 percent of Black women have high blood pressure by the same age.

And if that’s not scary enough, consider that nearly half of all people with high blood pressure don’t even know it. There aren’t many noticeable signs of the problem, but these folks are at much higher risk for heart attacks, kidney failure, hardened arteries, strokes and other problems.

Experts recommend having your blood pressure checked at least every other year. If your readings are high, follow your doctor’s orders. The natural remedies in this chapter—in conjunction with medical care and used with your doctor’s approval—may help prevent or lower high blood pressure, according to some health professionals.

See Your Medical Doctor When... You require a blood pressure reading. high blood pressure can cause strokes and heart attacks, but because there are so few symptoms, it is possible to have high blood pressure and not even know it. The American Heart Association suggests that you have your blood pressure checked at least every other year by your doctor or another qualified health professional. If your blood pressure is 140/90 or above, ask your doctor how often you should have it rechecked.

Aromatherapy

“Blue chamomile is great for people with high blood pressure,” says Victoria Edwards, an aromatherapist in Fair Oaks, California. Carry the essential oil with you and inhale directly from the bottle whenever you feel flushed or agitated, suggests Edwards. She also recommends a daily massage using an everlast massage oil, which combines one drop of everlast (also called immortelle or helichrysum), two drops of blue chamomile and ten drops of lavender in one ounce of olive, almond, sunflower or another carrier oil. (Carrier oils are available in most health food stores.) Massage this blend into the area under the collarbone every day at bedtime, she says.

For information on preparing and administering essential oils, including cautions about their use, see page 19. For information on purchasing essential oils, refer to the resource list on page 633.

Food Therapy

“It’s important to increase your intake of potassium and magnesium, since the way to lower high blood pressure is to narrow the dietary ratios between sodium and potassium and between sodium and magnesium,” says Julian Whitaker, M.D., founder and president of the Whitaker Wellness Center in Newport Beach, California. “And the best way to do that is to eat a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, especially bananas, melons and dark green leafy vegetables.” (For more food sources of potassium and magnesium, see “Getting What You Need” on page 142.)

One of the best ways to lower blood pressure is to eat more celery, which contains an oil that can lower blood pressure, adds registered pharmacist Earl Mindell, R.Ph., Ph.D., professor of nutrition at Pacific Western University in Los Angeles and author of Earl Mindell’s Food as Medicine and other books on nutrition. Celery oil allows muscles that regulate blood pressure to dilate, says Dr. Mindell, and scientific studies show that rats who consumed the equivalent of four stalks of celery a day lowered their blood pressure an average of 13 percent.

Herbal Therapy

Eating up to three or four cloves of garlic every day may lower blood pressure, according to Varro E. Tyler, Ph.D., professor of pharmacognosy at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. If you’d rather not eat fresh cloves, try garlic supplements (they’re available in many drugstores and most health food stores). Dr. Tyler recommends enteric-coated tablets such as Garlique for maximum absorption of allicin, the blood pressure–lowering ingredient in garlic. He says to follow the dosage recommendations on the label of the product you choose.

Imagery

To soothe your blood pressure, imagine going to your refrigerator and taking out three or four ice cubes, writes Gerald Epstein, M.D., a New York City psychiatrist and author of Healing Visualizations. Picture yourself slowly washing your head, face and neck with the ice. Feel the coolness seeping into every pore and entering your bloodstream in the brain. Envision an icy feeling tumbling down through your neck and trunk and into your fingers and toes. At that point, sense that your blood pressure is within a normal range.

Dr. Epstein suggests doing this imagery for three to five minutes three times a day or whenever you sense that your blood pressure is elevated.

Juice Therapy

“Celery juice has a mild diuretic effect, similar to many drugs that are prescribed for high blood pressure,” says Elaine Gillaspie, N.D., a naturopathic physician in Portland, Oregon. She recommends an eight-ounce blend of one part celery juice, one part carrot juice and one part water, taken at least once a day. “This juice is highly nutritious and can be helpful for people with high blood pressure,” says Dr. Gillaspie.

For information on juicing techniques, see page 93.

Reflexology

Once you and your doctor have stabilized your blood pressure, you can help maintain normal levels by focusing on the following foot reflexes, says Rebecca Dioda, a reflexologist with the Morris Institute of Natural Therapeutics, a holistic health education center in Denville, New Jersey: solar plexus, to help control negative emotions; colon, to help your body eliminate toxins; urinary tract; heart; and lymphatic system. To help calm you down, she also suggests you do extra relaxation strokes.

To help you locate these points, consult the foot reflex chart on page 592. For instructions on how to work the points, including how to do the relaxation strokes, see “Your Reflexology Session” on page 110.

Relaxation and Meditation

Studies suggest that meditating for 20 minutes twice a day can help lower high blood pressure, says Sundar Ramaswami, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at the F. S. Dubois Community Mental Health Center in Stamford, Connecticut. For an example of a meditation technique, see page 117.

Sound Therapy

Listening to relaxing music for 20 to 30 minutes each day can slow the heart rate and help lower blood pressure in some people, says Steven Halpern, Ph.D., composer, researcher and author of Sound Health: The Music and Sounds That Make Us Whole. To get started, turn on the music, then sit or lie comfortably, close your eyes and take a deep breath. Dr. Halpern suggests that you wear headphones to focus your attention and avoid distraction. He recommends, however, that you keep the speakers playing, so your body absorbs the sound energy. While the music plays, let your breath slow down and become steady. Listen not just to the notes but to the silence between the notes. Dr. Halpern says this will keep you from analyzing the music, which will allow it to relax you.

For suggested pieces to relax by, see “Sailing Away to Key Largo” on page 129. Many of those pieces are available in music stores. For mail-order information, refer to the resource list on page 642.

Vitamin and Mineral Therapy

Along with conventional therapy, the best ways to lower high blood pressure are to cut back on sugar, salt, caffeine and alcohol and to reduce or eliminate meats in your diet, says David Edelberg, M.D., an internist and medical director of the American Holistic Center/Chicago. He also says that people with high blood pressure may want to use the following vitamin, mineral and herbal regimen to help control the condition: 500 milligrams of calcium twice a day; 400 milligrams of magnesium twice a day; one tablespoon of flaxseed oil a day; 400 international units of vitamin E a day; 30 milligrams of coenzyme Q-10 three times a day; one hawthorn berry capsule three times a day; and one ginseng capsule twice a day. Flaxseed oil and coenzyme Q-10, hawthorn berry and ginseng supplements are available in most health food stores.

Yoga

Two yoga poses, the corpse (page 612) and the knee squeeze (page 612), are especially helpful with high blood pressure, according to Alice Christensen, founder and executive director of the American Yoga Association. These two poses help improve blood circulation and relieve tension, which is a major contributor to high blood pressure, she explains. An association study found that people with mild high blood pressure could lower it by doing these two poses every day, along with breathing exercises (see page 152) and meditation (see page 153). Christensen recommends meditating twice a day for 10 to 20 minutes each time. And she says to choose one or two other poses, in addition to the knee squeeze and corpse, for your daily yoga session. You can pick from the poses in the Daily Routine, which begins on page 606.