Could Acupuncture Lower Your Blood Pressure Readings?

Could Acupuncture Lower Your Blood Pressure Readings

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If you suffer from high blood pressure then you'll know how dependent you can become on modern medicine. There are dozens of different drugs that your doctor can use to lower your levels - all aiming for the perfect BP numbers and a lower risk of stroke or heart attack. But modern medicines often bring side effects with them and more and more people are turning away from conventional approaches and towards a more natural way of doing things.

You can now buy herbal remedies for treatment, invest in relaxation MP3's and even purchase your very own breathing and biofeedback machine. But do they work? Will they actually lead to better health and make your blood pressure treatment more pleasant and beneficial?

Acupuncture has a basis in ancient chinese medicine but western doctors and scientists have looked at it closely over more recent years and have begun to understand just a little of how it might work to improve health. They've discovered that putting needles into certain areas of the body - usually called acupuncture points - causes a release of hormones and chemicals. Some of these chemicals act on nearby nerves, some act on the brain by entering the blood stream - but crucially, some of them seem to act locally on small blood vessels in the surrounding skin and tissues.The end result is that the blood vessels open up a little or dilate - triggering the flushing feeling and warmth that some of us experience if we have acupuncture treatments performed.

Now - stay with me on this because it's not too hard to understand ....

Blood pressure is a measurement of how hard the heart needs to pump to shove the blood around your body. A high pressure means that the vessels are narrow and resistant to the flow - a lower pressure means that there is less resistance and that it's easier for the heart to pump. So, if the arteries, veins and capillaries open up a little due to acupuncture then the blood can flow more freely and the pressure will drop.

Acupuncturists will deliberately choose certain points because they know that they can achieve the best results that way - and some will even use powerful points on the ear to trigger a significant BP level drop.

I'm a great advocate of natural blood pressure remedies - but with one firm proviso. You need to be certain that you are going in the right direction with it. There's no point in just blindly following one guru's ideas or slavishly taking one particular herbal remedy, if you can't be certain that it's having the desired effect. Just leaving things to chance is not an option because you could end up with higher levels and worse problems than you started with.

The only real way to keep on top of things properly is to buy a blood pressure monitor. The choice can seem confusing with all sorts of options built in to some of the devices - but in truth all you need is a simple inexpensive model. It's not hard to learn how to use it properly and you'll soon have the knack of keeping a regular diary of your BP results. This is how you keep yourself safe. Once you've learned to record your own readings then you can run a whole series of little experiments about what works well for you.

I always advise people to start with a week of just recording readings without trying to change anything. Find out what your own "normal levels" are. From there the first approach should be to lower your salt intake. Try a whole week with virtually no salt in your diet - fruit juices, fresh fruit and yogurt should achieve that for you. Record your levels again and see what happens and believe me, you might be very surprised at what harm salt can do to you !

Beyond that point there's no limit to the exporations you can have as you try to suss out what works best for you. It could be a herbal remedy, it could be a breath training device, it could be regular exercise - it might be all of these things. But with your own monitor at home you'll soon learn how to sort things out to suit your own needs. Acupuncture might even turn out to be the thing that stops you needing modern medication treatment. Don't delay - buy yourself a monitor and get started today.

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