Why would you wait until you find your heart in your throat? Save your health before it gets into any trouble! We often overlook the importance of our health and then regret not taking any measures to prevent it from becoming worse. This is very true in case of lifestyle-related diseases, where you enjoy your life the way you want it (minimal activity and maximum fun), slowly pushing your health to the danger zone. Only when you are diagnosed with some health condition you would realize what you have been doing all these while to yourself. Hypertension is a classical example of this. Some harmless laxity, as you may think it is, may lead to conditions like hypertension, diabetes, etc.

Let’s have a look at some common lifestyle mistakes that lead to hypertension and try avoiding them. Always, prevention is better than cure.

Feeding Yourself to Overweight

Do you know that your weight is related to hypertension? Yes, being overweight predispose you to hypertension. If you are trying to reduce blood pressure or the chances of developing blood pressure, then weighing yourself is probably the first thing you should do. Your weight increases when the additional fat you consume gets stored in the body. These fat tissues in the body need to be supplemented with oxygen and nutrients, causing the blood vessels to circulate more blood than it used to.

Also, the heart needs to pump more blood through additional blood vessels to meet the nutritional and oxygen requirements of these tissues. More circulating blood implies more pressure on the artery walls, which in turn increases the blood pressure. Reducing your weights comes with a hamper of health benefits; it gives you cardiovascular health benefits like reduced insulin resistance, reduced hyperlipidemia, and reduced risk of left ventricular hypertrophy and obstructive sleep apnoea.

Consuming High Dietary Sodium

Once diagnosed with hypertension, the first thing a person is asked to do is to avoid pickles and fries. This is because of the high salt/sodium content in them. The more you take salt, the more strain it causes in the inner sides of arteries. The small muscles on the walls of the artery, to cope with the extra strain, grow stronger and thicker, narrowing the lumen of the artery. This contributes to your blood pressure.

Another fact is that, when it comes to hypertension, we all focus on sodium and somehow overlook the importance of potassium. Increasing dietary potassium also helps to decrease hypertension. So, consider including potassium-rich foods like bananas, avocado, kiwi fruit, nuts, yogurt, etc. in your diet.

Alcohol Consumption

Alcohol increases blood pressure in many ways. It not only interferes with the blood flow from and to the heart but also affects with the liver’s efficiency in metabolizing the hormones renin and angiotensin which play an important role in blood pressure maintenance. Also, some studies show that alcohol consumption reduces magnesium levels, which contributes to increased blood pressure. So, reduce alcohol intake to enjoy a happy and healthy life.

Smoking

Smoking is one such factor that independently contributes to the risk of hypertension. There is an immediate increase in blood pressure, which persists for more than 15 minutes. The rise in blood pressure is related to the much-known content of tobacco — Nicotine. This component constricts your blood vessels and thus, leads to increased pressure on the walls of the blood pressure. Smoking cessation is not only beneficial for blood pressure but also markedly reduces overall cardiovascular risk, including the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. In patients with coronary heart disease, smoking cessation is associated with a 36% reduction in the risk of all-cause mortality. So, stop burning yourself to slow death.

Sedentary Lifestyle

It is proved that physical activity reduces both resting and daytime ambulatory blood pressure. A sedentary lifestyle leads to overweight which in turn contributes to hypertension. Indulging in some kind of physical activity not only lowers blood pressure but also benefits your cardiovascular health. Regular exercise increases high-density lipoprotein and reduces Low-density lipoprotein. It also reduces weight, percentage body fat, waist circumference, systemic vascular resistance, insulin resistance, plasma noradrenaline and plasma renin activity.

Now you might have realized that you’ve been doing at least one of these mistakes all these days. Don’t worry, better late than never. Correct your mistake and reduce the risk of hypertension. The points mentioned above indeed help you reduce the number of factors contributing to the risk, but it does eliminate the possibility totally. There are many other factors that lead to hypertension.

Original source: Vidalhealth.Com