Hypertension - Learning To Breath Again
igh blood pressure, eating healthy foods that
are low in sodium and getting plenty of moderate exercise are
the best ways to reduce it naturally. Medication is usually
necessary, too, as prescribed by a doctor. But there’s
something else you can do, too, that will decrease your
hypertension and help your overall health. It’s something you
do constantly, but that you’re probably not doing properly.
What is it? Breathing.
New research shows that breathing deeply and slowly every day
for a few minutes can lower your blood pressure by several
points. For people with hypertension, medication and lifestyle
changes are still necessary; the deep breathing should be in
addition to that, not instead of it. For people with normal
blood pressure, deep breathing can help keep it normal.
Why does it work? Doctors are still figuring that part out.
Deep, slow breathing does make the blood vessels relax
momentarily, but that doesn’t account for the long-lasting drop
in blood pressure.
But when you’re stressed and taking short, shallow breaths,
that decreases the kidneys’ ability to get rid of sodium, which
results in higher blood pressure. So one theory is that deep,
slow breathing helps the kidneys do their job better, bringing
hypertension down.
Regardless of why it works, it does work in most people. The
general idea is to breathe deeply and slowly for about 15
minutes a day, decreasing your breathing from the normal 16-19
breaths a minute to less than 10.
To help hypertension patients accomplish this, a company called
InterCure has marketed Resperate, a device that regulates your
breathing in the described manner. It’s approved by the Food
and Drug Administration and costs about $300. So far, it’s only
available on the Internet, where it’s been for sale since 2002.
The device is simple. It looks like a portable CD player,
including headphones and soft music. The device measures your
heart rate and breathing patterns, and tones in the music
prompt you when to inhale and exhale. It’s helped lower blood
pressure in clinical trails, and many patients have reported
success with it, too. Some people have even been able to lower
their blood pressure so much with Resperate that they were able
to go off their medication altogether — with their doctor’s
permission, of course.
The question is, is it necessary? Resperate doesn’t actually do
anything to you from a medical standpoint; all it does is tell
you when to breathe. With the right self-discipline, you can do
that yourself. Just sit in a relaxed position with your eyes
closed, take a slow, deep breath, then exhale just as slowly.
Repeat this for 15 minutes.
Still, Resperate is a helpful reminder. Just as a treadmill is
more convenient than running around the block a few times,
Resperate is handy for helping you breathe properly for a few
minutes a day, which you might forget to do on your own if
there weren’t a device sitting there, reminding you. It’s no
substitution for diet, exercise, and medication, but it’s a
nice supplement to those things. The best part: Assuming you’re
breathing clean air, deep breathing has no possible side
effects!
About The Author: Paul Johnson has an interest in High Blood
Pressure. For further information on High Blood Pressure please
visit
http://www.natural-blood-pressure-reduction.com/bloodpressure.html
or
http://www.natural-blood-pressure-reduction.com/blog/2006/11/24/hypertension-learning-to-breathe-again/
..
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