All about High Blood Pressure
RESPeRATE has just launched a new blog that includes interesting information and news about hypertension. The first categories include Hypertension Facts and Hypertension News. Check back often as new content continues to be posted. As with the Ask Dr. Rowena blog, be sure to share your knowledge and thoughts by posting comments.
#7: Adopt 1 hour active cycle followed by 1 hour resting cycle (54! non-drug ways to lower blood pressure)
Written by: collin_carbno | Posted: Mar 16 2010
#7. Adopt 1 Hour Active Cycle Followed by 1 Hour Resting Cycle
Number 6 in my blood pressure lowering list, extolled the virtues of interval training. In it, I recommended the one-minute, do it as hard as you can type of effort, followed by a minute of recovery, followed by another minute of exercise and so on.
“A 2005 study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that after just two weeks of interval training, six of the eight college-age men and women doubled their endurance, or the amount of time they could ride a bicycle at moderate intensity before exhaustion.”
Now that’s impressive. I’ve found that when I do interval training, it also holds for me. I can roughly double my endurance in a month … whatever the task you put yourself to doing.
In this tip, I recommend a change of life style, in which we purposely start structuring our day around the go-hard, take-it-easy paradigm in one hour intervals. The concept is that you might do an hour of hard vacuuming around the house, going vigorously, and then take an hour to do some nice novel reading. Followed by hour of meal preparation - running up and down stairs to get things, and so on. Or you go out and shovel some snow for an hour (don’t over-do it), and then come in to have nice hot chocolate and read the mail. I do a lot of computer work, and even at work, I’m starting to think in terms of hour activity intervals. One of the methodologies that I promote is Agile. Agile software development talks about rhythm. It has been shown that if you go hard for a few days (a sprint) and then slow down, it is actually more productive. Teams that work in this way, get more done. It also holds within a day. If you go hard for an hour, then take a more reflective attitude, your productivity goes up.
This reminds me of the mathematical idea of fractals. You can think of the hour of activity also as being structured in 10 minute intervals. 10 minutes in which we work harder, and 10 minutes of more relaxed effort but still working). And then you can break the 10 minutes itself down into 1 minute of going all out, and 1 minute of taking a bit of break.You can also go up, and start thinking in terms of days, one day on, one day off, and then even in terms of weeks: one-week harder, one week softer. I think that a month interval is way to long, but an occasional week when you rest a bit more than usual isn’t the end of the world. It is a time to rest up muscles, let some natural healing occur. Since I walk to work, I’ve worried when I’m on vacation for 3 weeks if I will still be able to handle the 1.5 hours of walking to work. In an effort to keep my conditioning up, I find that vacation time is perfect for more intense interval training. Go for that vigorous sightseeing tour. Go for an hour run, and during the hour, pour it on for a minute and then take a minute off. I find that even two days a week is enough to maintain conditioning.
In my IT (Information Technology) world, after one hour on the computer, then, it is time for a walk - to talk to someone, take that bathroom break, go to the mail room, print something and go get the copy. The point is to get the body moving. It has the (positive) side benefits of stopping the pooling of blood in the legs, in getting deeper breathing going, and generally helps rev up the metabolism. If nothing else, I pull out a couple of big books and do one minute step up, step down, as fast as I can, to drive up my heart rate.
The combination of high activity and rest, apparently kicks down blood pressure, exercise increases thermal burn (and fat burn), and releases blood pressure lowering hormones.
I’ve also experimented with the stretch bands, and I find they lower stress. If I find myself getting stressed about work, to take a 2 minute break and really vigorously work the stress band, kicks up the heart rate, gets the body limbered up, and starts to help relax some of that latent tension.
See NY Times article: A Healthy Mix of Rest and Motion
At one point, when I really wanted to get blood pressure down, I did Resperate for 10 minutes (take blood pressure) and then get up and do 10 minutes of interval training, do Resperate for 10 minutes (take blood pressure again) and keep that up for an hour. In almost every case, at the end of the hour, my blood pressure would be 40/20 lower than at the start.
Remember, you don’t have to exercise for 3 hours a day– 3 intervals of 10 minute interval training will likely provide more benefit.
· Medication: Diovan/ valsartan (ARB) (this site)
#6: 15 minutes of interval training per day (54! non-drug ways to lower blood pressure)
Written by: collin_carbno | Posted: Mar 02 2010
#6. 15 Minutes of Interval Training per Day
( 1 minute on — 1 minute off)
The idea in interval training is that you do a period of intense activity followed by an equal period or so of “off” activity. I like the one-minute on and then a minute off technique. Apparently when we have high bursts of energy output like this, we trigger the body to start burning fat. The body knows that burning fat is another way to get even higher energy levels into the body. Studies show that interval training is a great conditioner. The point isn’t to drive yourself to exhaustion or to totally stress yourself out, but to just get your heart and lung rates up enough to get you out of breath. If you’re getting up in years, it might not take much; a 100 yard dash, 30 seconds of quick sit-ups, or whatever raises your heart rate. The resting period is also important– it gives your body a chance to recover, lowers your heart rate, body temperature and so on. A younger stronger person, might be able to go solid for 5 minutes on, 5 minutes off, and really high level athletes might do interval training with15 minutes on, 15 minutes off.
See New York Times article: A Healthy Mix of Rest and Motion
Personally, I’ve found the one minute period the best. It’s easy to look at your watch and to follow the one minute. I tried going 2 and 3 minutes but it just tires me so much, that I don’t recover for the next interval. All the time for that one-minute you should try to go at it fairly gung-ho. Speaking of gung-ho, gung-ho means working together. If you can find a partner to do some interval training, it is a great way to be gung-ho together.
Interval Training for Weight Loss
Interval training like any exercise can be dangerous; you can stress your body and have a heart attack or a stroke. When in doubt talk to your doctor, and like any new exercise, take it real easy for the first few days and work up. While exercise might trigger a stroke, keeping in shape is a great way to prevent these nasty outcomes. Remember to start easy,don’t overdo it and work up to higher levels.
The benefit of interval training is that one pushes the body to higher level, and even brief moments at these higher demand levels creates physiological changes. Another way to think about interval training is that you get twice the benefit for half the effort! That’s right, if you work hard out for one minute, rest a minute and work again, and rest again, then for 2 minutes of exercise, you are getting 4 minutes of benefit. Actually, you are getting even more. Studies have shown that after a brief intense interval workout, effects like higher metabolism can linger for up to 24 hours!
“After three months, they found that the exercisers who did interval aerobic training three times a week showed greater improvements in blood pressure and oxygen carrying capacity compared to the continuous aerobic exercise group.”
More about the study
The beauty of this exercise program is that you don’t need a lot of time. A 4 minute workout isn’t that hard to find. You simply start doing something strenuous for a minute. You could be doing steps (on a stair, or a stool), or you could run down the street fairly fast. Or you can start lifting weights (not too heavy) fairly vigorously for a minute.
If you are just starting, you can do something as simple as running on the spot.
If the activity you try is too hard for you, there’s nothing wrong with doing it for 30 seconds or shorter as you work up your conditioning — until you can handle the full 60 seconds.
Some studies have shown improved regulation of blood glucose and insulin from interval training. In short, interval training is a wonder. Interval training can be 30 minutes of activity twice a week, or 10 minutes a day. It doesn’t seem to matter. I find that doing 15 minute a day is a nice number - easy to handle … but I often do less. In fact, writing up about this, I realize, I’ve let my program slip… I’m going to start again on interval training.
Study results
Do you live in a hilly neighbourhood? Run up a hill … it works wonders. A nice way to get your heart rate up quickly.
Just one last thing. Nothing motivates us like being able to see some progress. Start with the one-minute on, one-minute off, and see how many cycles you can last. Try to add another cycle each week. Or alternatively, try timing yourself for 50 of the items (50 steps, 50 yards, whatever). Here is another reason for doing it every day: You can see your progress, from day to day, from week to week. I did weight lifting in interval training for 10 pound weights. When I started, 5 repetitions was all I could handle, and after just 2 weeks, I was handling I was up to 30 repetitions. This interval stuff works.
It’s a good idea to take a couple of days off; Sunday and Monday seem like good days to me. The first day back at work, can be exhausting, so sometimes it nice to rest up a bit. Traditionally Sunday is a day of rest for many, or you could choose Saturday, and that be can be your Sabbath day. That said, any two days probably work.
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· #4: Increase potassium (54! non-drug ways to lower blood pressure) (this site)
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#5: Reduce to a healthy body weight (54! non-drug ways to lower blood pressure)
Written by: collin_carbno | Posted: Feb 10 2010
#5. Reduce to a Healthy Body Weight
Control your weight through better eating, more exercise, and smaller portions.
“Paul D. Sorlie, Ph.D and colleagues, authors of the study, from the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute said the ever-increasing rate of Americans with high blood pressure may be related to the obesity epidemic and suggested that more prevention effort needs to be invested in preventing obesity.” Click here for more info on the study.
I was one of those teenagers that could eat anything and any amount and never change my weight by an ounce. I was 125 pounds when I was married at age 26, skinny as a rail and ate 3 times as much as a “normal” person. I was also very active, with badminton, swimming, tennis and running. I thought nothing of packing on 4000 calories in a day, and had ample helpings of ice cream, cookies, and whatever I desired. I never thought about weight until I was turning 40 and discovered I had crept up to 140 pounds.
By the time I was 46 years old I was pushing 200 pounds. 200 pounds was clearly way too heavy, and I needed to do something. So, I’ve tried various strategies to manage weight control. Walking to and from work as I mentioned in an earlier blog was the best single thing I found helped to reduce weight more than anything. For the last 10 years, I’ve been monitoring my weight on and off, and I’ve noticed a strong seasonal effect. I lose weight from about February to September, and gain weight from September through to the end of January. The only problem with this pattern is that it seems I gain more in the 5 winter months than I lose in the 7 other months of the year. So, my recent goal is to control that peaking each winter, and to drive my summer values lower.
Obesity and the problem of weight in our society is currently a matter of great debate and research. Medical science is starting to unravel the weight control processes in the body, but they still have a long way to go to completely understand it all. Meanwhile, there are all kinds of diets and dieting products, and literally thousands of books on the subject. I’ve read a couple of hundred of those books, and I’ve learned an enormous lot about how the human body works. Generally when we eat food, the body processes it into a sugar type compound with water and stores it in the liver. A typical adult can store a whole day’s worth of activity in their liver in this manner. Because your liver needs water to store this sugar compound, a glass of water with a meal is actually a great idea. If you had a really full meal and filled up, so to speak, your primary energy tank, this amount of stored energy can hold you for a whole day’s worth of activity. Generally, folks burn about 100 calories an hour during the day, and 50 calories an hour during sleep, for roughly 1600 Calories and 400 Calories a day, respectfully. (Just a word of note: a food Calorie is actually 1000 physics calories.) Obviously, there are many factors here controlling these numbers including body size, activity level, body shape, the temperature of the environment, metabolic condition, and our genetic inheritance.
Assuming you didn’t eat again, when your primary tank starts to get below 500 calories, most persons start to become interested in food. When it drops to below 200 calories serious hungry feelings normally kick in. Assuming for some reason you don’t eat in this state, we know you don’t just collapse in 2 hours, so where does the new energy come from? It turns out that we have various kinds of fat cells in our body, and through a complex chemical signal process, those fat cells can be coaxed to release fat into the blood stream. The liver picks this up this fat, and converts it into sugars to supply your body.
You may have read in books about the danger of hypothermia when being lost in the wilderness. Hypothermia occurs when more heat is lost than the body can generate. While our primary energy tank in the liver can turn out energy at rates up 400 calories an hour or more, (Olympic athletes can easily top 1000 calories an hour), it turns out that our fat conversion engines aren’t as powerful, and we have trouble producing even 100 calories an hour from fat reserves, and 50 calories an hour might be reasonable value for an out-of-shape person. It also seems that fat conversion engines take a while to get really going. All this means that if you are lost in the woods you don’t want to run around, get cold, and burn out your primary energy tank too rapidly. If your primary energy tank goes to zero you die.
The fat burning energy normally releases sugar straight into the blood stream, but it can also be captured and stored by the liver. Indeed, when our primary energy tank is low, the body will try to store whatever “free energy” is floating around into this primary energy tank. Now, in cases of an extreme energy shortage, the body has still another way to free up more immediate energy reserves. It will start to burn muscle. One problem with starvation diets is that even though your body is burning fat as fast as it can, this may not be fast enough to supply your energy needs, so besides making you cranky, listless, and irritable, being this short of energy triggers muscle burning.
The body can convert muscle into energy fairly rapidly. This muscle burning produces a pile of chemicals in the body and besides being hard on your kidneys, will cause you to literally waste away. Without muscle, you start sagging all over, hardly the way to win a beauty contest. Muscle of course is your strength, and it turns out that muscle is one of our primary energy burners, so once one loses muscle mass, the daily energy requirements drop. This condition is one problem with yo-yo dieting, each cycle of dieting reduces your muscle mass, and causes your body to burn even less calories. Returning to a more normal calorie intake, the body naturally replaces the muscle, and the dieter puts back on all the weight they just lost. Here is one benefit of weight and strength exercises is that they increase muscle mass, and therefore are helpful in that they allow you to eat a little more without putting on weight.
It turns out that our bodies are incredibly fine-tuned machines. When operating properly, we regulate energy intake and energy burning to maintain an amazingly consistent weight for decades at a time. However, this complex metabolic process can easily become damaged either through stress, injury, disease, viruses, infections, in-activity, poor diet, and genetic processes including aging. Suppose that the energy store function becomes damaged so that the body consistently puts out even a small signal to store fat, then the body will take a few calories every day and store it as fat. Even 10 calories a day would add up to a pound a year, and in 30 years you have a weight problem. Furthermore, it seems that the more fat you have, the more the body puts out signals to store fat. So, once you become fat, it becomes extremely difficult to get that fat to burn off and stay off.
To get your body to do more fat burning, it’s actually a good idea to encourage the body to encourage some fat burning. This means getting hungry for a couple of hours per day. When you come to a meal you should feel hungry, and when you leave the meal you should feel satisfied but not stuffed. When we overeat, we fill our primary energy storage to the top, so that the extra food is stored as fat. This means of course that we get hungry just as fast as we did on a smaller meal, and repeating this process daily adds up to huge weight gain.
I don’t believe in dieting per say, whatever you do, you have to adopt it as a from now on life style. So, when you want to lose weight, don’t stop eating, you want to keep eating. In fact, eat enough so that most of the time you don’t feel hungry, but eat a little less so that by meal times you have a good appetite. It’s also helpful if you learn to listen to your body; don’t eat when you aren’t hungry, don’t pig out when you are satisfied.
What is causing today’s obesity problem? I suspect that it is a combination of factors, starting with too little daily exercise and activity. You don’t get thin, sitting in front of a computer or TV for 10 hours a day. The second big factor is improper foods. Our high calorie, low nutrition foods are a killer. Suppose your body is short of a particular vitamin, say vitamin C. It’s highly likely that the body knows that it can only get vitamin C from food, so it turns on your hunger. You eat more. Instead of eating fruit to get the vitamin C you need, perhaps you pig out on potato chips or pizza. The body gets lots of energy but not the vitamin C it needs. Conversely, if we eat higher quality foods, it stands to reason that we don’t need to eat as much food to get the requirements for minerals and vitamins our body needs. Also, the ingredients in high quality food helps our body run better, and we regulate our own weight better. I suspect that stress, pollution, toxins and the like in our environment aren’t doing our metabolic engines any good. If you put dirt in your car’s gas tank, the car engine won’t run as well, and similar things happen in the human body, when we ingest toxins, chemicals, and various drugs.
I mentioned earlier that stopping eating is generally a terrible method of weight control. Starvation does considerable damage to our bodies. However, a short 24 hour fast, once a week appears from research to be a helpful thing. In such a fast, the primary energy reserves in the liver get taken down to a lower level and the body is encouraged to fire up the fat burning processes. An analogy is that when you take your car out on the highway and get the engine really burning hot, it kind of burns the crud out of the system. Similarly, these short, 12 to 24 hour fasts, get the body burning some fat. When you get hungry for a couple of hours before a meal, it is also a kind of mini-fast. Most of us can handle a 12 hour fast, the only danger being that when we do decide to eat, we over-eat, and gorge out. The way to avoid this is that when you start to get really hungry eat about 200 calories. This burst of calories will supply your body for 2 hours but is also low enough that your body will continue to burn fat. So, I suggest if you are thinking of a 24 hour fast, start eating some food around 12 hours, and by the time you to reach 24 hours you should be again eating a normal calorie intake. The secret here is to eat smaller portions every hour during the fast time.
Check if you’re at a healthy weight
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#4: Increase potassium (54! non-drug ways to lower blood pressure)
Written by: collin_carbno | Posted: Jan 28 2010
#4. Increase Potassium (more banana, potatoes, fruits)
I suggest at least 2 bananas a day, at least 1 potato, and at least one other fruit ( apple, or orange). Vegetables are even more important than fruit from a nutritional point of view.
I know that some folks are hard on potatoes – thinking that people should cut them out of their diets. Some argue that potatoes can raise insulin levels and are relatively high in calories. However, I think that one must also consider the benefits of a food. On the plus side, potatoes contain important vitamins and minerals, and are an excellent source of potassium. Potassium is known to be important in the regulation of blood pressure. I happen to love potatoes, and I’ve tried to reach a compromise– instead of eating 4 or 5 potatoes at a meal I like to hold myself now to one or two medium sized potatoes (the size of one’s fist). A further advantage is that potatoes are relatively cheap, and compared to bread, I think that potatoes are a healthier choice. (I still eat bread too — but I also limit it to reasonable amounts). A potato is about 100 calories which is similar to a slice of bread. Calorie for calorie, I think that potato wins over bread.
Click here for more info about potassium to lower blood pressure (Harvard Health)
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#3: Walk! (54! non-drug ways to lower blood pressure)
Written by: collin_carbno | Posted: Jan 21 2010
#3. Walk daily for at least 30 minutes
About 15 years ago, I made a really wise choice. I use to take the bus to work everyday. I live about a 45 minute walk from work. So, it’s about 3 miles or 5 km. I thought for a long time, that this was just too far to walk. Our Saskatchewan (Canada) weather varies from-40C to +40C (-40 F to 104 F) so it can be challenge. My brother in law who is 10 years younger than me was walking to work, and although his walk was 20 minutes shorter, he kept encouraging me to try.
My weight was edging up and in desperation I thought I needed to do something. I decided to start walking home. I remember the first day I did it: I walked really slowly, and it took me over an hour and 15 minutes. When I got home I was so hot and tired, I had to lay down for 20 minutes to recover. I had this enormous thermal burn feeling, much like I remembered experiencing in my 20s when I played sports hard for a couple of hours.
For a month, I kept at it, walking home from work each day. I was often tempted by the bus, but I continued to keep at it, walking the distance. Then, we had a bus strike. I really had no other way to get to work, so I decided if I could walk home, I might as well also walk to work. So, I started to walk to work. The strike ended, and I continued to walk both ways.
Now 10+ years later, I don’t experience the thermal burn and think nothing of walking both ways. I even try running it in nice weather, and have done the distance in 30 minutes. It has becomea special time for me; to watch nature, trees, and to think about life. I happened to be blessed in that about half of my walk goes through a bird sanctuary, with a nice lake. I’ve been blessed with arctic terns, muskrats, squirrels, gulls, geese, cornets and rabbits. In winter, when it becomes pitch black, I’m often walking in almost total darkness, and it’s fun to see the rabbits that scamper along in the park.
Many days, I decide on courses of action on the way to work. My walks have become a time that I put my mind to different problems that are facing me, and a time to talk to myself, and to strategize new ideas.
The impact on my health was amazing. First, I dropped 30 pounds in weight, from 180 pounds to 150 pounds. Then, my legs really hardened up with nice solid muscles. I felt so much better. I now really miss the walk, if for some reason I can’t do it.
I still take the bus if the temperature goes above 37C (98 F) or if drops below -37C (-34 F). I also won’t walk in thunderstorms with lighting. Over the course of the year, there are usually just 5 or 6 days that I end up taking the bus one way or the other.
I have noticed that half an hour after a vigorous walk of 45 minutes,my blood pressure usually drops 5 or so points. Of course, it is only a temporary drop, but studies seem to indicate that walking is an excellent endeavor.
Click here for more about walking to improve blood pressure
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#2: Lower your salt intake (54! non-drug ways to lower blood pressure)
Written by: collin_carbno | Posted: Aug 28 2009
#2. Lower Your Salt Intake
Get your salt (sodium) intake down below 1000 mg per day. (The actual number seems to be somewhat in debate– 1000 mg might be too low, and different individuals may need to hit different values to have an effect). My point here is mostly to cut down on your salt. Most prepared foods have some salt, so you have to be careful when trying to add up the amounts – it’s easy to miss substantial amounts of salt. Of course, the body has a need for salt, so I wouldn’t suggest that anyone go on an ultra low salt diet. Be warned that many types of bread have 100 mg per slice, some cheeses have 400 mg of salt or more per slice, and some canned goods contain up to 95 0mg per tin.
Salt has been a somewhat controversial issue — is it the salt itself or is it other ingredients in the salty foods associated with higher blood pressure? Many highly processed foods have a high salt content and low nutritional value. So, perhaps it isn’t the salt reduction itself, maybe the nutritional improvement from substituting other healthier foods is what makes the difference. Nevertheless, there is a theory that excess salt damages the cardiovascular system over time. Studies show that in about half of the cases of hypertension, the reduction of salt in the diet proved to be helpful. The elderly and African Americans are the most likely to benefit from restricted salt intake.
My personal observation is that ingesting a high dosage of salt (2000 mg+ per day), if I have several back-to-back meals that are loaded with salt, my blood pressure will rise 20/20 points and stay up for 3 days. On the other hand, if I get my salt down to a more reasonable level, I haven’t found any improvement from dropping it further. I do feel that salt is somehow hard on the body and it probably does put stress on the cardiovascular system. It seems from reading the medical literature that if you follow a low salt diet for extended periods of time, like years, that there is a kind of accumulative health benefit. Again, the bulk of the benefit may come from the fact that low salt foods tend to be healthier as a whole, rather than the negative impact of the salt itself. My personal thought is that both effects are operating, salt itself is harmful in some way, and the healthy food - less processed, less chemicals of low salt food, also improves overall health.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2288755
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#1: Use RESPeRATE (54! non-drug ways to lower blood pressure)
Written by: collin_carbno | Posted: Jun 20 2009
#1. Use RESPeRATE (Rr)
My impression from the studies is that the majority of folks (more than half) get a positive response from using RESPeRATE. That aside, it’s highly possible that there are folks that do not get any benefit from using the Rr. The most likely cause in these cases is that they have some cause not effectively managed by Rr and not that they are incorrectly using the machine. Still, when I first started using the machine, I didn’t notice any benefit for the first 3 weeks. I took my blood pressure before and after each session, and sometimes BP went down, sometimes it went up, and sometimes it stayed the same, but an hour later my blood pressure seemed unchanged.
Sometime in the 3rd week, however, I began to relax and I didn’t try to perfect the process. I simply began to relax, enjoy it, and I didn’t worry so much about keeping in perfect time with the machine. Presto — after each session my blood pressure dropped sharply. Then, when I had high blood pressure, I would do a session and drop the blood pressure. If it still wasn’t down enough I’d do another session, and drop it a bit more, and if I had time, I’d even do a third session and drop it further. This gave me a kind of positive feedback loop. I began to feel that I could do something to control my blood pressure value. I then started to notice that my readings an hour later were lower, and over the next few weeks began to see my daily readings dropping. Currently, I try to do one 10 minute session per day. On holidays, and weekends, I try to get in two sessions.
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What is the connection between stress, salt and hypertension?
Written by: bgavish | Posted: Jun 16 2009
Stress has a greater effect on the blood pressure of people whose blood pressure is sensitive to salt intake.
Mental stress has become an inseparable part of the competitive lifestyle of our modern society that relies on technology rather than physical exercise, and has a deleterious effect on our cardiovascular system.
Some people display elevated blood pressure when consuming more salt (containing sodium). This genetically-inherited “salt-sensitivity” was found to cause greater blood pressure elevation in response to mental stress, even in people with normal blood pressure, suggesting that stress reduction is of special significance in this population.
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RESPeRATE — How it all began
Written by: jchodirker | Posted: Jun 15 2009
In the late 1980’s, Dr. Benjamin Gavish (”Beny”), a biophysicist (and part-time ballroom dance teacher) began researching a biological phenomenon known as vasomotion - the slow and rhythmic oscillation of small blood vessels within the body, which is of vital importance. While research had shown that vasomotion was reduced in those with vascular diseases, Beny was also intrigued by the fact that vasomotion was altered when a person smoked a cigarette or told a lie and he became interested in how vasomotion was affected by stress levels. It was this curiosity that led him to develop a technique to better study vasomotion quantitatively. Two bigger questions began to dawn on him: Could one amplify the blood vessels’ vasomotion in a controlled manner? And if so, would such a change be beneficial to health?
Little did Beny know that his breakthrough would come when his wife, Dr. Leah Gavish (biologist and part-time dance teacher), was complaining of a headache. She happened to visit him at the lab while he was in the middle of a vasomotion experiment. On a whim, he mounted sensors on her fingers and observed that she was experiencing a normal vasomotion rhythm of 6-per-minute. Thinking back to his dancing hobby, Beny recalled people’s natural tendency to follow musical rhythms. He turned on a sound synthesizer that could create tones based on a selected rhythm and played a pattern for Leah. What happened next was amazing. Her breathing pattern “locked” on the sound pattern for 10 minutes and her vasomotion increased considerably. Beny’s visualization of the “blood vessel dance” which he had just created was interrupted by Leah announcing that her headache was gone!
This was only the beginning…
Dr. Gavish began experimenting with guided breathing in a gym in Jerusalem. With the help of a gifted group of experts in digital music, he was able to measure people’s response to changes in a musical rhythm. Beny and Leah tested the ability to guide people’s breathing from a normal rate to as-slow-as-possible-but-still-comfortable levels using enjoyable sound patterns.
The results of the experiments were striking! People who listened to the changing rhythm displayed blood pressure reductions within ten minutes accompanied by frequent sensations of “floating,” “weightlessness,” and “deep relaxation.” Those that attempted to relax simply by listening to pre-recorded, commercial music did not show the same results.
Having faith that he was onto a major finding, Beny set up a “garage-operation” and began to develop the first prototype of what would later become RESPeRATE, a completely unique device. This non-drug solution is now clinically validated by 10 published clinical trials, has received regulatory clearance in major markets around the world, and is currently in use by over 100,000 people. It is safely and effectively lowering their blood pressure through device-guided breathing.
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54! non-drug ways to lower blood pressure
Written by: collin_carbno | Posted: May 29 2009
I currently have a list of 54 different suggestions (non-drug) to lower blood pressure. As part of this blog, I want to work my way through the list and give you my impressions and thoughts on this list. My list was composed roughly in the order that I found them. Many of these points have the potential, on average, to lower blood pressure by 2 to 5 points. My idea here is that although each one might have a small effect, combinations of 7 or more of them may allow for substantial reductions in blood pressure. I tried to include only items on the list for which at least one scientific study has found evidence of an improvement in blood pressure. The advantage of having many suggested possibilities to lower blood pressure is that it provides variety in the approach. If one set of possibilities doesn’t work, you can try others.
I once read that a medical researcher suspected that there were up to about 20 different causes of high blood pressure. If so, then it isn’t surprising that some drugs and some treatments don’t work for all folks.
Each non-drug way to lower blood presure will be posted individually — so keep tuned!
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Classified - Internal use
Classified - Internal use
Classified - Internal use
You might like: · New Dietary Guidelines Tell America to Cut Down on Salt (MyFox Twin Cities)
· Medical Conditions : What is the Best Food for High Blood Pressure? (Thought Search Articles)
· 7 Habits of Highly Frugal People (MoneyNing)
· RESPeRATE — How it all began (this site)
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