There’s a lot of clients in Louisville, KY that ask for help from a personal trainer to help shed weight. They also know that exercise lowers high blood pressure in the process. When you participate in a program of exercise, you’re heart pumps hard, making it stronger. That means it pumps with less effort and causes the force exerted on your arteries to be less. Lowering that force means lower blood pressure.
Exercise helps you lose weight.
Losing weight is often recommended when a person has high blood pressure. That’s because the more you weigh, the higher your blood pressure tends to rise. In fact, often just losing as little as 2.2 pounds can lower your blood pressure by one millimeter of mercury. If the weight loss was in the abdominal area, blood pressure dropped more significantly. That’s because visceral fat, the fat that collects around the middle, crowds organs and is far more dangerous than regular fat that accumulates other areas. Taking waist measurements is as important as weighing in. Women with waist measurements higher than 35 inches and men with measurements higher than 40 are more at risk to higher blood pressure.
You’ll reduce the hormones of stress when you workout regularly.
When you’re under stress, the body sends out hormones to prepare it for the fight or flight response. I makes changes like sending more blood to extremities and temporarily raising your blood pressure by making your heart work harder. It narrows the blood vessels, while also making the heart beat faster. Exercise burns off the hormones of stress that causes the changes, lowering the blood pressure and reducing the risk of stroke and heart attack.
It’s more than just working out, it’s also a healthy diet.
If you want to lose weight or just want to see your blood pressure come down without the aid of medication, you need to switch your diet. Eat more whole foods, cut out salt and increase foods that are high in potassium. You can’t out exercise an unhealthy diet when it comes to losing weight, so changing your diet is important, particularly if weight loss is part of your goal.
- Regular exercise can help you sleep better at night. A good night’s sleep can help you lower your blood pressure.
- Get active and enjoy it. Working out in the gym is a start, but living an active lifestyle is the key to a healthy body. Start doing active things you love and spend time with family and friends doing them. It adds to a healthy social life that also lowers blood pressure.
- If you smoke, quit. Working out can help you through the nicotine withdrawal. It helps improve your mood and makes quitting far easier.
- A program of regular exercise can help prepare your body for life events that come along. Whether you find you have to lift something heavy or need to maintain balance and flexibility for something, you’ll be ready.