The incidence of hypertension is gradually increasing in modern society. According to statistics, about half of the people over 60 years old suffer from hypertension. Once hypertension is detected, what should be done? Many people will go to the hospital for treatment, and rightly so. However, hypertension is a chronic disease, in other words, most people will have it for the rest of their lives. During this time, you will encounter a variety of conditions that require patient and careful treatment and self-management. Let’s leave the medication to the doctor and focus today on self-management of hypertension.
Treatment of hypertension by the World Health Organization and the Hypertension Alliance includes lifestyle improvement and medication. Many early stages of hypertension can be lowered with lifestyle improvement, and even in more severe hypertension, lifestyle improvement is the basis for drug therapy. Lifestyle improvement is medically known as non-pharmacological treatment, including smoking cessation and alcohol restriction, exercise and weight loss, weight control, low salt diet, etc.
1. Quit smoking and limit alcohol.
Cigarettes can increase blood pressure. We can do an experiment, take a sphygmomanometer, in a quiet state to measure blood pressure 2 times in a row, 2 times the value of blood pressure may have a small difference, but should not be greater than 5 millimeters of mercury (mmHg), such as 2 times the difference is too large, it should be retested, and then take the average, as the blood pressure record before smoking. Then start smoking and after a cigarette is smoked, repeat the above measurement process and you will see a significant increase in blood pressure (5-10 mmHg). Therefore, it is never too late to start smoking cessation.
There are many sayings on the topic of alcohol consumption. Some people say that yellow wine cannot be drunk, but white wine can be drunk; others say that white wine cannot be drunk, but red wine can be drunk. In fact, this is all a half-understanding. First of all, any alcohol is made of rice, sorghum, barley, grapes and other grain or food fermentation and concentration, containing high energy, into the body after a series of complex physiological and biochemical reactions, into sugar or fat is absorbed and used by the body or stored; excess is harmful. Therefore, excess of any kind of wine is not beneficial.
Although, in terms of lipid therapy, red wine (or yellow wine) can increase high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), a type of cholesterol with cardioprotective effects. Therefore, a little red or yellow wine is better than other types of alcohol in small amounts, but not in excess. In addition, drinking wine must be accompanied by a large number of meat and vegetable dishes, cold dishes, seafood, chicken, duck and fish, etc. The protein and energy content of these dishes is high and rich in nutrition, but if they accumulate in the body in excess, they become a burden or waste, but cause obesity, high blood fat, fatty liver, high blood pressure, diabetes, atherosclerosis and a series of diseases. Therefore, alcohol must be limited to no more than 100 ml (2 taels) of red wine or yellow wine per day. Although each person has a size of alcohol, which only reflects the speed of alcohol decomposition in the body, but the energy eaten is the same.
2. Weight loss and exercise.
Weight loss includes weight control, diet control and proper exercise. Control weight depends on the person, the commonly used formula for calculating the standard weight: height – 105 = standard weight (kg kg). But each person has thick and thin bones, how much muscle, so there is no need to force, as long as the body moves freely, responsive, proportionate, and maintain a stable weight can be.
Control diet and exercise are both for weight control. For example, if you are preparing for a hard or strenuous job today, you should increase your diet appropriately. Conversely, if you are not active this evening, do not eat too much for dinner. The food eaten should be used up or consumed, otherwise, excess food can cause obesity. Some people say, “I eat very little, how can I still get fat? This is to find the reason from every thing you eat. Although you may have very little rice, but if you eat a lot of dishes, some wine or drinks, which contains a lot of calories, in addition, vegetable soup often contains a lot of oil and salt, many housewives can not afford to pour, but eat it will be too much. Watching television incidentally eat a little snack, if the evening and then a glass of milk, also contains numerous proteins and nutrients, over time, it will cause obesity.
Weight loss and weight control should pay special attention to several key periods in life that are prone to gain weight: women after childbirth; after a fracture, surgery, or a major illness; retirement; menopause, etc.. These events all have a significant impact on lifestyle habits, and attention can easily be focused on the treatment of a particular disease, requiring enhanced nutritional recovery, but if too much is overdone, it is difficult to regain the former weight. Therefore, it is necessary to control the diet properly, both to ensure nutrition and not to cause obesity, and to eat up to eight minutes at each meal. It is important to ensure the intake of protein and fruits and vegetables.
Exercise is important to maintain weight, weight loss and health. Everyone has their own favorite form of recreation and exercise. Walking, jogging, tai chi, dancing, playing ball, swimming can be, and even shopping is a good choice. And should be minimized sedentary recreational activities: playing mahjong, watching TV, playing computer online, bubble tea, etc.. Maintain an even amount of activity every day, but also a larger amount of exercise 2-3 times a week. Exercise should not be excessive, to exercise rest after the second day of energy, the whole body comfortable as good. If the second day after strenuous exercise body aches and discomfort, then we must reduce the amount of exercise, gradually increase.
3, low-salt diet
High salt diet can cause high blood pressure is based on the conclusion of extensive epidemiological surveys of the population speculation. Therefore, the World Health Organization recommends a salt intake of no more than 6 grams per person per day. But also according to the specific circumstances, such as heavy laborers sweat a lot, the need for salt is also high. In addition, drinking tea can be diuretic, conducive to salt excretion; eat more fruit, containing potassium, it can partially offset the role of salt sodium chloride; drink more water, but also help dilute and excrete sodium salt.
4, tonic and food selection
Our ancestors had the habit of taking winter tonic. Ginseng is a traditional tonic in our folklore. Ginseng can be a great tonic for people who are weak or after serious illness. However, healthy people may overdo it, especially those with high blood pressure, who are strong and have hyperactive liver yang, so if they eat it at once, they will easily increase their blood pressure. The strongest effects are wild ginseng, bezoar ginseng, red ginseng and Paulownia ginseng, etc. Some health products containing ginseng also have similar effects. Some people say, “I don’t want to take red ginseng, can I take American ginseng or raw ginseng instead? Although American ginseng is cold in nature, it is still a qi tonic and may still have an effect on blood pressure in the long run. If you must take health products, you can consult a Chinese medicine doctor and buy cool tonic products such as Dendrobium iron.
The choice of food also has a point. China’s traditional Chinese medicine advocates the same source of medicine and food, food is also cool and warm. According to the classification of Chinese medicine, each person’s physique has a certain bias. Most people with hypertension have a hot constitution, generally red, vigorous, loud, often constipated, etc. Therefore, according to the Chinese medicine viewpoint of the same source of medicine and food, usually should be selective to eat cold properties of food, avoid hot food. It is usually considered that the cold properties of food are aquatic products, chicken and duck, pork, green vegetables, mustard, bitter melon, lentils, green beans, spinach, chrysanthemum, lettuce, lilies, celery, watermelon, strawberries, pears, etc., while hot foods include mutton, goose, leek, garlic, onion, pepper, pumpkin, yam, etc. While potatoes, tomatoes, roots, cucumbers, bamboo shoots, wild rice, water chestnuts, various kinds of radishes, etc. are flat foods and can be safely consumed. Cooking of food can also change the properties, such as deep-fried, fried, barbecued, etc. can increase the heat, hot pot seasoning, a variety of spicy seasonings also increase the heat of food, if long-term consumption, can also affect the blood pressure or reduce the effectiveness of drugs.
5.Rest and relaxation
Rest can lower blood pressure by reducing sympathetic tone. Through 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring can be seen that people who sleep well have significantly lower blood pressure at night. Conversely, if insomnia, tension, nightmares, etc., blood pressure at night does not drop, and is even higher than during the day. How to improve the quality of sleep requires looking for the causes from various aspects such as the bedroom environment, daytime activities, and physical condition, and gradually adjusting them.
Blood pressure can also be lowered by active rest and relaxation. Such as qigong, yoga, various physiotherapy instruments, massage instruments, antihypertensive devices, etc., are through a variety of instruments or equipment, stimulating the body’s meridians or auricular, plantar skin, or through the method of psychological suggestion, to achieve the balance of sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves in the body, so that the body’s spirit gradually relaxed, blood pressure will then drop. But after the end, the effect will disappear; therefore, high blood pressure cannot replace drug treatment, but only as an auxiliary or supplementary treatment.
6. Keep warm in winter and drink water in summer
The stimulation of the body by weather changes can also affect blood pressure. When it is cold in winter, especially when the cold air comes south, blood pressure will be higher than before. Many hypertensive patients will feel headache discomfort, and even induce stroke, myocardial infarction. Therefore, the winter cold must pay attention to keep warm, do not go out too early in the morning, wear more clothes, wear a good hat, scarf, gloves and other cold items, room windows should not be open for too long, especially at night when sleeping should close the windows, using a variety of heating equipment to prevent cold stroke.
Summer temperature increases, vasodilation, blood pressure is easy to fall. But in summer, the human body is prone to sweating, appetite decline, the blood in the body to concentrate, resulting in increased blood viscosity, dizziness, limb weakness, and even induce cerebral thrombosis. This time we should pay attention to replenish water, before going to bed or after waking up to drink more cool water, even in the middle of the night dry mouth should also drink water, although it may affect sleep, but gradually get used to it will adapt. On the other hand, the air conditioning temperature in the room should not be too low, the temperature difference between indoor and outdoor is too large, also easy to cause blood pressure fluctuations.
In summary, regarding the treatment of hypertension, both the World Health Organization and the Chinese guidelines for the prevention and treatment of hypertension recommend that if you have grade 1 hypertension (140-159/90-99 mmHg) and no risk factors such as coronary heart disease or diabetes, you should first improve your lifestyle. If the blood pressure exceeds 140/90 mmHg even after 2-12 months of non-pharmacological treatment, additional pharmacological treatment is required. For people with blood pressure in the range of 120-139/80-89 mmHg, which are normal high values, the guidelines recommend that lifestyle improvements should be made to prevent the development of hypertension and cardiovascular disease.