As every parent knows, being a Mum and a Dad is a tough gig, and it’s hard to find a balance between time for yourself and ensuring that your kids get the best upbringing you can provide for them. When you struggle to find the balance, sometimes it’s your health that suffers, and one of the most popular health issues for parents is high blood pressure.
Fortunately, there are plenty of ways for parents to control their blood pressure and prevent it from taking over their lives and making it difficult to be fit and healthy for their kids. Here are eight health tips that will help with high blood pressure.
Keep Your Weight Down (Stop Snacking)
One of the trickiest parts of being a parent - particularly when your kids start eating solid foods - is snacking. It’s so easy to reach for candy bars and biscuits when your little ones have a snack or have friends over, and they can be tough to kick if you get into the routine of eating them.
Try to cut down the number of snacks you keep at home and make an effort to maintain your weight (or lose it, if you’ve gained a few pounds) with a healthy eating plan, fewer snacks and more exercise in your daily lives. This will go towards maintaining healthy blood pressure.
Cut Down on Your Salt Intake
It’s amazing just how sodium there is in food, particularly of the processed variety. Be sure to check the packaging of your food before you serve it to your family, and look for signs that indicate a lower sodium rate. If you cut salt out of your diet as much as possible, your blood pressure will keep at a healthy level. For a simple change in the home, change from regular salt to sea salt. This has a far smaller amount of sodium. Cooking with less salt and eating less processed food will also help.
Eat More Fruit and Vegetables
Eating fresh fruit and vegetables may sound boring, but for your long-term health - and for the future of your children’s health, too - you should start to incorporate at least 5-10 pieces of fruit or vegetables into your diet. Have raisins instead of chocolate as a snack, a banana on your cereals instead of sugar. Make smoothies and soups if you get bored of fruit and veg easily, and add one or two vegetables onto your plate when you have your evening meal. Each of these small changes will give your heart a big boost.
Consider the Medication Options
While there are numerous natural ways to combat high blood pressure, sometimes there comes a need to deal with the issue of medication. One of the most popular medications prescribed for high blood pressure is bystolic generic drugs, which is a beta blocker that can lower blood pressure and lower the risk of heart failure in the future. There are several other medications available on prescription, too. Speak with your Doctor for recommendations.
Curb Your Drinking
There’s nothing wrong with enjoying an ice cold beer or a glass of wine on occasion (you’re a parent, so you’ll probably need it) but drinking to excess can increase your blood pressure considerably, so try and maintain a one or two drinks a day, or less if possible. You could set yourself a goal of only drinking at the weekend, or drinking a low-alcohol option instead. These will both play a large part in keeping your blood pressure at a healthy level.
Make Your Life a Non-Smoking Zone
Smoking doesn’t have a direct effect on your blood pressure, but cutting it out will give your risk of heart failure and getting cancer a significant boost, and if you’re healthier, as a result, it is inadvertently going to help you reduce your blood pressure, too. Although it’s easy to say ‘stop smoking’ to somebody, the painful truth is that quitting smoking is incredibly hard, especially if you use it to deal with stress and anxiety, or have been smoking for the majority of your adult life.
There are options available to help you quit - such as switching to vaping, using patches and chewing gum, etc. - but the tried and tested way is to slowly reduce the amount you smoke and to stop smoking at home, and go from there. Simply saying ‘I quit’ and stopping is impressive, but far less likely to work long-term, and you’ll feel bad about yourself if you go back to smoking. See it as a long game, with a great ending if you can finally quit for good when the time comes.
Take a Walk for Stress Relief
Exercise is the best medicine for high blood pressure as it relieves stress and sweats out all the toxins in your body from those naughty foods and drinks you’ve been putting into it. If you don’t have the time and energy to hit the gym consistently - as many parents don’t - you can use walking as a mode of stress relief. The advantage of walking over the gym is that your kids can come, too, and you can use a good walk as family bonding time, as well as an opportunity to put any stressful thoughts about work and life to the back of your mind. You’ll soon see your blood pressure dropping to healthy levels.
The 30 Minute Exercise Goal
There have been countless studies into what people can do to keep fit and healthy, but the one that is realistic and achievable for busy parents is the 30-minute exercise a day goal. Your blood pressure will increase while you take a brisk walk, pump some weights, take a class, go for a run or whatever you chose to do for those 30 minutes, but this is so your heart can increase the blood flow to all the major organs in your body. If you keep an active lifestyle, your blood flow will be kept at a healthy level and reduce the risk of heart disease, which should be high on your priorities as parents. It should be fairly easy to get 30 minutes worth of sweat out of your body on a daily basis, even if it’s just walking the dog. Incorporate a run into it, or get your little ones to help out with some stretching in the living room. If you’re enjoying the exercise, it’ll have a positive long-term effect on the health of your body and mind.
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