For Quick Alerts
ALLOW NOTIFICATIONS  
For Daily Alerts

Safe Exercises To Go For If You Have High Blood Pressure

Listed here are a few of the best exercises that help lower and control blood pressure.

By Archana Mukherji

High blood pressure is a very common symptom seen in many people these days. If you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, you might be worried about medication to bring your numbers down.

The most important point is, once you start medication for your blood pressure, you will be asked to take it regularly, which many of them find it difficult and sometimes tend to forget.

While high blood pressure is understood to be risky to the heart, it is also vital to know that this is not only the only reason for cardiovascular problems.

how to control blood pressure

One main factor is your weight. If your weight exceeds more than 20% of your anticipated weight, you are prone to being affected by heart problems.

When your blood pressure goes down below 90/60, you are at the risk of low blood pressure and anything above 140/90 is an indicator of high blood pressure.

If you already have high blood pressure, regular physical activity can bring it down to safer levels.

The best types of exercises that can help you to lower your blood pressure include walking, jogging, swimming, dancing and cycling. Strength training can also be helpful in such cases.

Exercising is a drug-free method of bringing down your high blood pressure to normal. The more active you are, the more you are on the safer side and can avoid high blood pressure if you have been diagnosed with this problem.

Our focus in this article will be on high blood pressure and the safe exercises that can be practiced along to bring it to normal. Continue reading.

Walking:

Walking:

Every step you take as a part of your walking exercise is part of your journey to good health. So, walk briskly every day. In fact, walking briskly not only reduces your blood pressure, but also reduces the risk of high cholesterol and diabetes and eventually helps you have a healthy heart.

Walking at least 30 minutes a day is recommended. You can split your walks into 10 to 15 minutes each per day. You do not have to actually allocate a specific time for your walk.

Jogging:

Jogging:

Jogging is one of the oldest and most popular forms of aerobics. Aerobic fitness helps you lead a better quality of life. It also helps to reduce the risk of a host of diseases. One among them is high blood pressure.

Also known as a silent killer, hypertension can have long-term effects on your body that can lead to several life-threatening conditions like hemorrhage, atherosclerosis and aneurysms, if left unattended. Jogging can help to keep your high blood pressure or hypertension at bay.

Cycling:

Cycling:

Cycling boosts cardiovascular health and also lowers high blood pressure. When you peddle while cycling, your legs move up and down, your veins are compressed and the blood is bumped into the heart. This makes cycling an excellent choice for a healthy circulatory system, to reduce high blood pressure and hypertension, and to have greater endurance and more efficient metabolism.

Swimming:

Swimming:

Swimming is fun!! The best thing is that this is a very attractive form of exercise to help lower your high blood pressure. Especially for older people who have high blood pressure, swimming is promoted as a good way to exercise because it is easy on the joints and does not cause overheating of the body.

Dancing:

Dancing:

Dancing is another form of aerobics and has been proven to have numerous health benefits by various studies. Dancing can keep you away from stress and significantly help you in reducing the risk of hypertension and high blood pressure. Especially in older adults, participation in dance-based therapy can help them improve balance and gait and also keep their blood pressure levels normal.

Other Low-impact Exercises:

Other Low-impact Exercises:

Some of the other low-impact exercises helpful for high blood pressure are strength training and walking up the stairs. Strength training is a type of physical exercise that can help you strengthen your muscles, build the size of your skeletal muscles and induce anaerobic endurance.

Yoga:

Yoga:

Yoga is a very beneficial therapy that can control and lower high blood pressure normally without the need for any medication. The gentle and soothing practice of yoga asanas settles both your mind and body, calms you down and helps reduce stress, which is the leading cause for hypertension.

You can continue doing yoga even after your blood pressure levels come to normal. To be on the safer side, it is always advisable to consult an experienced yoga practitioner before you start doing yoga, so that your exercises are tailored.

Story first published: Thursday, July 20, 2017, 18:18 [IST]