Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Blood Pressure (see Hypertension)

10 ways to fight against high blood pressure

1. Take more foods that contain potassium. Foods such as sweet potato, orange juice, potato, banana, kidney beans, peas, cantaloupe, dried plums and raisins can help lower high blood pressure. Specialists suggest adults should take 2-4 grams potassium. through natural food/fruits

2. Understand the salt amount in food. Senior people are more allergic to sodium and taking even a little excess amount can cause high blood pressure. to regualte blood pressure sodium potassium balance is very important in the body. 

3. Eat dark chocolate. (a good news) Dark chocolate contains flavanols. Taking a few pieces a day can improve the health of heart and blood pressure. (not my fav)

4. Vitamin supplement. I personally don’t prefer taking any dietary supplement that’s not natural. However, coenzyme Q10 can lower blood pressure. Consult your doctor before taking these vitamins.

5. Walk fast. Fast walking can help high blood pressure patients lower their pressure. The key is it has to be several times a week and last for more than 30 minutes. Once the patients adapt this cardio exercise they can increase the pace and distance a little bit.

6. Deep breaths. Qi Gong, Yoga, Tai Chi relieve pressures through deep breaths and meditation, which lower the level of renin and hence lower the blood pressure. Take deep breaths for 5 minutes every morning and evening. The key is to take a deep breath and breathe out slowly along with the stresses.

7. Decrease the workload. Working over 41 hours a week can cause the probability of high blood pressure increase 15%. Relieve the workload for the health. Make a healthy dinner or go to gym after work. These are helpful options.

8. Listen to music for relaxation. There is a research indicating that listening to relaxing music for 30 minutes along with deep breathes, blood pressure can go down for 3.2% after a week, and 4.4% after a month.

Hand Acupressure/Reflexology for high blood pressure



High blood pressure means the blood flow in our body doesn’t go well because of certain resistance, and cause the heart to pump harder and give higher pressure to keep the blood flowing. The causes of high blood pressure vary. Most of the time is caused by other health problems, but overweight and inappropriate diet can also be catalysts of high blood pressure.

High blood pressure can cause some self aware symptoms like headache, shoulder stiffness, tinnitus, palpitation etc. But the most scary one would be arteriosclerosis caused by high blood pressure. It’s because when blood pressure is high, the arteries of the whole body will have to share the extra pressure evenly, some blood vessels get weaker and may cause stroke or myocardial infarction (MI)

Treatment of high blood pressure is usually taking medicine to control the pressure. But we can’t ignore the side effects of these medicines. So acupuncture and acupressure on acupoints would probably be a more natural treatment. There are 3 acupoints on the back and the side of the hands. The first one is called “Yang Xi”, which locates on the inner side of the wrist under the root of thumb, where the concave area is. The second one is called “He Gu” on the back of the hand in between the thumb and the index finger, locates at about the length of the first segment of the thumb counting inward. The third one is called “Luo Ling Wu” on the back of the hand in between the knuckles of index finger and middle finger. Most high blood pressure patient can feel the little pulse at those acupoints, so it’s not too difficult to find them. (See diagrams)

Here is the guide to stimulate those acupoints using finger massaging or rubbing, if problem is serious, use a bunch of 10 toothpicks or pointy device to stimulate:

1. Maximum blood pressure > 160mm reading on the meter: stimulate the first one “Yang Xi”

2. Maximum blood pressure > 180mm reading on the meter: stimulate the second one “He Gu”

3. Maximum blood pressure > 200mm reading on the meter: stimulate the third one “Luo Ling Wu”



I talked about acupoints for treating high blood pressure. Now lets talk about reflexive area that you can massage to help control high blood pressure.

When you wake up in the morning and totally feel energetic about the busy work; in the next event you totally feel like a brand new person with a loud, confident voice and never feel tired; and then you think, “I feel really healthy and strong now.” If you’re really confident about it, you may really be the type that is young and healthy. However, another cause of this sudden “energetic” manner can be high blood pressure. Because a lot of high blood pressure patients or “potential” patients are quite energetic and even a little “hyper” with activities.

Many think that high blood pressure is a disease that mostly occurs in middle age group. Although it’s partly true, but many young people may have that as well, especially the genetic ones. Usually when we were young, the blood vessels are more soft and flexible that can take more impacts with change of blood pressure. But if we’re over confident with our health, that may become a problem. Because working over time, alcohol, smoking, stay up too late, too much salt intake….for a period of time – will easily cause high blood pressure.

May be we can start massaging our hands everyday to start adjusting our body condition. High blood pressure is not a quick thing to cure no matter in eastern or western medicine. So, patience and continuation of hand reflexology is a helpful thing to do.

The reflexive areas treating high blood pressure are mostly on the thumbs. The palm side and the back side of the thumbs belong to “head reflexive area”, “neck reflexive area” and “bronchus reflexive area”. (See diagram)



Clip on the thumbs from the side of them to stimulate the area, keep twisting and waving the wrists at the same time. That may help lower the blood pressure. Massage the thumb tips every day whenever possible such as on the way to work. If blood pressure is already quite high, taking breaths in mind with the same tempo of the massage will make it more effective.

If we meet a person who got sudden rise of blood pressure, ask him or her to sit down and rub the wrist tendon on the little finger side with the direction from arm to hand. This should help lower the blood pressure immediately. And since that may cause a little temporary low blood pressure, that’s why the patient need to sit down first.






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