When 270 controlled tests with 15,827 people were pulled together, every kind of exercise lowered blood pressure. The kind that lowered it most did not involve moving at all. Holding a muscle still against a load, isometric exercise, took the top number down by about 8 points and the bottom number by 4, nearly twice what aerobic training managed. And of all the holds, the one that came out on top was the wall squat. Standing still, thighs burning, going nowhere.
That is the sort of thing the usual blood pressure list leaves out. High blood pressure rarely announces itself. It does its damage to the heart, the kidneys and the blood vessels of the brain for years before anything hurts. The standard advice that comes with it is a plate of fruit, whole grains and low-fat yoghurt.
Here are seven natural ways to lower your blood pressure that do not start with a bowl of muesli, and how to measure it so you know whether they are working.
1. Cut the sugar and the starch
The diet that usually comes with a blood pressure diagnosis is low in fat. It has been tested against the opposite. 146 overweight veterans were put either on a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet, or on a low-fat diet with a weight-loss drug, orlistat, for 48 weeks. Both groups lost about the same weight, 9.5% and 8.5%. On the low-carb diet, the top number fell by 5.9 points and the bottom by 4.5. On the low-fat diet with the drug, both went up slightly. The pill and the low-fat plate, between them, managed nothing.
Sugar pushes the other way. 10 Eye-Opening Benefits of Cutting Out Sugar and Choosing Healthier Sweeteners has the tests that ran eight weeks or longer, in which more sugar raised blood pressure by about 7 points on the top number and 6 on the bottom.
So build the plate on meat, fish and eggs, and let the bread, the cereal and the sweet drinks go. If you take blood pressure tablets, tell whoever prescribes them before a change this big, because the readings can fall.
2. Get the salt right
Salt is where the old advice is half right. Why "Drink More Water" Is Incomplete Advice, linked below, has both halves. Across 34 controlled tests with 3,230 people, eating less salt brought blood pressure down, more so in people whose pressure was already high. But in PURE, which tested the urine of 101,945 people in 17 countries, both ends carried more risk. Those passing more than 7 grams of sodium a day had more deaths and heart events than those at 4 to 6, especially if their pressure was high, and so did those below 3.
The low-salt diet itself had an odd start. Why "Drink More Water" Is Incomplete Advice has it: in 1939, at Duke University, Walter Kempner put patients with malignant high blood pressure on nothing but white rice, sugar, fruit and fruit juice, with about 150 milligrams of sodium a day, and they improved fast. The diet that started the fear of salt was also a sugar diet with almost no protein, built for people who were gravely ill.
The salt worth cutting is mostly not in your salt cellar. Around three quarters of the salt we eat comes from packaged and everyday foods, such as bread, breakfast cereals, processed meat and ready meals. Cook your own food, season it with a good unrefined salt with nothing added, such as , and taste before you shake. If your blood pressure is already high, that is where the caution belongs: less of it, and the salt you do use the honest kind.
3. Get your potassium from meat and fish
Potassium is sodium's partner. Why "Drink More Water" Is Incomplete Advice has the machine in the wall of every cell that pushes sodium out and pulls potassium in, again and again, and keeps a nerve firing and a heart beating.
The usual list sends you to bananas and spinach smoothies. Weight for weight, cooked salmon carries more potassium than a banana, 436 milligrams in every 100 grams against 358. A salmon has never needed a blender. Meat and fish bring it with the protein, and an avocado on the side carries more than either.
The swap itself has been tested on a large scale. In 600 villages in rural China, 20,995 older people with high blood pressure or a past stroke were given either their usual salt or a salt in which a quarter of the sodium chloride was replaced with potassium chloride. Over nearly five years, the villages on the swapped salt had about 14% fewer strokes and 13% fewer major heart and circulation events. Less sodium, more potassium. Meat and fish already make that trade for you, and potassium salts are not for everyone: people with kidney disease, or on tablets that raise potassium, should leave them alone.
4. Hold still
Back to the wall. In those 270 tests, aerobic training brought the top number down by about 4.5 points, resistance training by about the same, and the two combined by 6. Isometric training, holding a position, took it down by 8.2. A wall squat, a handgrip held hard, a leg pressed against something that does not move: unglamorous, quiet, and better on the numbers than anything else in the review. A grip trainer such as the turns the handgrip into something you can do at a desk. Grip is worth training for its own sake. What Your Eyes, Tongue, Nails, Skin, and Breath Are Telling You About Your Health has the 139,691 adults in 17 countries in whom the strength of a hand squeeze predicted death from any cause, and from heart disease, better than blood pressure did.
The rest still counts. Defy Aging with Movement, linked below, has the 93 tests with 5,223 people in which endurance training lowered blood pressure by about 3.5 points on the top number and 2.5 on the bottom. Walk, lift, and add a hold. If you are new to all of it, start slowly, and pick the kind of movement you will still be doing in a year.
5. Lose the waist
Weight matters, and the waist matters most. 12 Signs Your Body Is Trying to Tell You Something Important has the 31 papers with more than 300,000 adults in which waist divided by height picked out the people at risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease better than body mass index did. The NHS turns it into one rule: keep your waist to less than half your height.
You do not need a tape measure to start. The veterans in the first section are the warning: both groups lost about the same weight, and only the low-carb group's blood pressure came down. How you lose it matters as much as how much.
6. Drop the alcohol and the coffee
The old version of this list allowed one drink a day, or two. Your blood pressure has a different view. How to Start Taking Care of Yourself Today: Why Your Body Can't Wait has the 94 healthy people who drank about 32 units a week and stopped for a month: their blood pressure fell by about 6%, their insulin resistance by about a quarter. A month is not long. Your arteries noticed anyway.
The coffee is next. How to Quit Coffee: Getting Through Caffeine Withdrawal has what one or two cups do in people with raised blood pressure: up by about 8 points on top and 6 on the bottom within the hour, and still up three hours later. Water is the drink.
If you smoke, stopping belongs on this list too. It is the same arteries.
One sweet belongs here as well. Herbs for Stress and Anxiety: What Works and What to Skip has why real liquorice is no friend of blood pressure: its glycyrrhizin can push the pressure up and drain potassium, more so in women, older people and anyone already prone to high blood pressure.
7. Sleep, and calm down
Stress raises blood pressure in the moment, and a bad night does it for longer. Ways to Stop Snoring Naturally—Which One Will Work for You? has the signs of sleep apnoea worth getting checked: loud snoring with gasping or choking, pauses in breathing that someone else has noticed, heavy sleepiness in the day.
Those signs are worth acting on for your blood pressure as well as your sleep. In 709 people in Wisconsin whose breathing was measured overnight and who were followed for four years, those whose breathing stopped or nearly stopped 15 or more times an hour of sleep had nearly three times the odds of high blood pressure at the end, after allowing for their weight, waist, neck size, age, alcohol and smoking.
The calm does not have to be elaborate. End Your Day Right: How Gratitude Before Sleep Can Help You Rest has the 119 young women who spent two weeks writing down things they were grateful for, and slept better and had lower blood pressure than the women who wrote about ordinary events or nothing at all.
A pet helps too. How Stress Spreads Through Families has the 240 married couples who did mental arithmetic and held a hand in ice water: the pet owners' heart rate and blood pressure rose least, and settled fastest, with their pet in the room, which beat having only their spouse there.
So does a book. 7 Benefits of Reading for Your Mind and Life has the health students whose blood pressure and heart rate fell after 30 minutes of reading, as much as after 30 minutes of yoga or of humour.
Heat may help as well. Among 1,621 Finnish men aged 42 to 60, followed for about 25 years, those who took a sauna four to seven times a week had about half the risk of developing high blood pressure of those who went once a week, after allowing for their fitness, weight, smoking, alcohol and starting blood pressure. It is an observation, not a test, but a pleasant one.
Measure it properly
The cuff is older than it looks. In 1896 Scipione Riva-Rocci introduced the first version that was easy to use, and in 1905 Nikolai Korotkov added the sounds, heard through a stethoscope, that give the bottom number. An automatic home monitor does the job for you, as long as you let it.
Most readings are wrong in small, ordinary ways. When 328 papers on 29 sources of error were pulled together, single mistakes moved the top number anywhere from 23.6 points too low to 33 too high. So one high reading is not a verdict, and one good one is not a cure.
The setting matters too. Between 15% and 30% of people found to have mildly high blood pressure in a clinic turn out to be normal outside it. It even has a name, white coat hypertension. Some arteries get nervous in public. The opposite exists as well, normal in the clinic and high at home, which is the better reason to measure where you live.
The American Heart Association's steps are simple. Use an upper-arm cuff that fits your arm, such as the . No coffee, cigarettes or exercise for 30 minutes before, and empty your bladder. Put the cuff on bare skin, sit with your back supported and your feet on the floor, rest your arm on a table at heart level, and rest for five minutes without talking. Then take two readings a minute apart, at the same time each day, and write them down.
Back to the wall
The strategy that did the most in 270 tests was a person standing still with their back against a wall. Blood pressure is like that. It answers to plain things done every day: less sugar, real salt, meat and fish, a hold, a smaller waist, no alcohol or coffee, a decent night's sleep.
This week, measure your blood pressure properly, twice, a minute apart, and write the numbers down.
Wondering how much salt you need? Why "Drink More Water" Is Incomplete Advice — what sodium does, where the fear of salt came from, and why both ends carry risk.
Want the full case for moving? Defy Aging with Movement: How Exercise Keeps You Strong, Sharp, and Independent for Life — what training does for the heart, the brain and the years ahead.
Know someone who takes their blood pressure with a coffee in one hand? Send them this, and point them at a wall.
Disclaimer: This article is general information. For advice about your own health, talk to a qualified health professional, especially if you take blood pressure tablets, have kidney disease, or plan a big change in diet.
Affiliate Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, All For Life earns from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you. We only link to products we would recommend without the commission.
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