TYLER TOLMAN BLOG
Natural Ways to Lower Blood Pressure
Natural Ways to Lower Blood Pressure
The main reason for high blood pressure is dehydration or an accumulation of plaque within the arteries. So all throughout our body we have all these amazing tubes of the cardiovascular system running through the body. Those tubes are carrying fluids, as well as immune cells, red blood cells, nutrients, minerals, blood plasma, hemoglobin, sugars and salts… all these types of things for the entire body.
High Blood Pressure Explained
A lot of times what happens is we get stressed and dehydrated. Imagine, if I drink an entire litre of water, my blood volume inside of my body (once it goes through my digestive system and absorbed) is one litre. You can’t compress water, so my blood volume inside of every little capillary, blood vessel artery increases with the level of hydration. With the increase in hydration there is less pressure required to push that blood through every nook and cranny of my body. It just makes sense, so hydration is a key factor for high blood pressure.
Now what happens is we have damage to the arteries due to stress, the types of foods that we’re consuming, and we have an increase in cholesterol, called High Density Lipoproteins (HDL) and Low Density Lipoproteins (LDL). The whole system is really misunderstood, but in general, when we have a ratio that’s out of whack, like high LDL and low HDL, it’s showing us that there’s damage happening to our arteries.
This can happen from a stressful lifestyle, being angry, frustrated, from drinking alcohol, from smoking, from eating too much trans fat and bad fats, too much processed sugars, and processed carbohydrates…all these types of things that create an acidic condition within the body.
When we have damage to the arterial walls, keeping the blood volume is key for avoiding a heart attack, a stroke and high blood pressure. The stress is essentially causing a little bit of stress inside of the arteries, or little tears, lesions or an accumulation of actual fat. So when you look at a blood test you see high triglycerides and you see high LDL or low HDL, we know that there’s an accumulation of this plaque that’s starting to build up on the walls of the arteries. And as that stuff is building up, it is harder for the body to get nutrients into the interstitial tissues.
If you can imagine these are all hoses and the hoses all have holes for the nutrients to go into all the cells. If I have an accumulation of this plaque that builds up, typically from bad fats, stress and toxins, then it’s harder to get the nutrients into the interstitial tissues. So the body’s like, ‘okay, well there’s plaque on my arterial walls so I need to pick up the pressure so that I can force these nutrients to go into the cells’.
So if I have high blood pressure my body’s essentially trying to get more nutrition into the cells whether I’m more active, have more stress, or I have a layer of plaque. There’s many different factors that can cause high blood pressure, such as, adrenals can cause high blood pressure so drinking too many caffeinated beverages, constantly running on a drug adrenaline and not having that balance of rest and relaxation.
Natural Ways to Lower Blood Pressure
We want to hydrate, we want to be able to relax, we want to eat good nutrition and the way to really clear the plaque out of our arteries is Whole Foods. It is the antioxidants, fibres, and phytonutrients inside of foods…
One of the greatest ways to clear our arterial walls is called Resveratrol. It comes from grapes. Red grapes look like the red blood cells. There’s something called grape seed extract which is a major anti-blood cancer killer for leukemia and things like that. A lot of good science on it, but essentially nutrition in general.
If I drink green juice, if I eat greens, if I eat vegetables, there’s all these amazing phytonutrients, whether you know the names of them or not. It’s just about eating healthy food and cutting out the stuff that’s actually causing the problem.
Fasting
In cases of people that have really high blood pressure, fasting is in my opinion and through observation, the fastest way to heal.
Take anybody with high blood pressure and put them on an extended water fast. You’re going to watch day after day, week after week, their blood pressure coming down, down, down… And whenever you want it to stop, you can just stop the fast.
Break the fast very slowly. Everybody’s different though. Some people can just break a fast and start eating fresh fruits right away. Some people need to have just very small amounts, even when it comes to juices, they might need to water it down, 50% water, 50% juice, and take it really slowly and see how their body reacts.
Side Note about Grapes
It can be hard to source grapes without the sulphites, so do your best to find good organic grapes. I wouldn’t worry about it though. When it comes to drinking wine and stuff like that, obviously there’s potentially sulphites and things added. I’m not really talking about getting grapes from that source, but you know sulphites are not bad. It’s just concentrations and too much can become a problem. Especially things when they’re concentrated and used as a preservative, that’s really where it becomes a problem. But sulphites coming in grapes and nature is not actually an issue.
Ultimately, to help lower and maintain healthy blood pressure, I will always recommend following the 7 Principles of Health – long walks every day and really having that level of balance. Good digestion! I find most people that have high blood pressure also have a backed up colon, so also clearing out the digestive system, with some colon cleansing, walking – taking care of your adrenal health is important.
Thanks for reading!
