 Hi guys, this is Dr. Ahmet Ergin. I'm an endocrinologist and a diabetes education specialist. Today we are going to talk about 10 ways to reduce your blood pressure. Now in our previous video if you missed it you can go to the description below at the end of this video to find out what is causing the high blood pressure to begin with. But today we are talking about how can you reduce your blood pressure. As we discussed in the previous video every 20 over 10 blood pressure elevation will double your risk of heart attack and stroke. So it is as important as blood sugar control. So you have diabetes or not, blood pressure control is essential. Now I am kind of in a feeling that you may be looking for a magic solution but there is none. But I'll give you some tips, 10 tips that if you listen and apply to your life, definitely will reduce your blood pressure greatly without needing to take medications. Hopefully. Let's get started. Okay, so number one we have to lose weight. So why? So you're like easier said than done, right? Yeah, it is. But when you have extra weight in your body unfortunately those fat cells screed a lot of inflammation. They screed a lot of angiotensin. They screed interleukins. They screed fatty acids. All result in drive of the blood pressure high through kidneys, through damaged endothelial cells, etc. etc. So if you reduce the overall fat in your body, especially the midsection, you will be able to reduce the inflammation in your body and will reduce the demand that causes the high blood pressure. And as a simple terms, you know, if your heart is trying to pump more blood you can realize that that's gonna need more pressure. So that's number one. Now, how do you lose weight? That's a different story. We have videos about intermittent fasting. We have videos about calorie control, etc. But that's number one. Number two. Yeah, it kind of sounds cliche, but exercise. Exercise has similar benefits to intermittent fasting or for you guys who are doing keto that also has similar benefits where you are basically reducing, shrinking your fat cells. You're utilizing the triglycerides, the fatty acids that are circulating in your blood similar to losing weight. Exercise will reduce your blood pressure. What else exercise will do? When you exercise, your body screeds something called the nitric oxide. Your endothelial cells, your vascular system screeds that nitric oxide. That's a vasodilator, which means that your blood vessels will dilate the venue exercise. If you do this regularly, which is 30 minutes every day, five days a week at least. If you do that, your body will continue to secrete that hormone and it will allow your blood vessels to dilate open up so that the blood pressure is not going to raise the rise. So that's number two. Number three. Very, very important. Extremely important. Reducing the salt content in your food. Now the easiest way to do that is stop eating canned foods. Stop eating TV dinners. Stop eating frozen stuff that is processed. You know, I'm not talking about frozen peas or something that's not processed, but if it is made into a meal, if it is put in a can to try to protect it and preserve the life of the thing, they use a lot of salt. And you may not think that you are using salt, but they are highly saturated with salt in order to preserve the life of the product. So always eat fresh fruit, vegetables and meat. That will be your best bet. Always eat fresh and real food. And also, remember how much salt you should really get in your diet is recommended that you go below 1500 milligrams. If that's not possible, I will say 2300 milligrams. Now, how do you measure the milligrams? So well, one teaspoon of salt is equal to 2300 milligrams. So just one teaspoon of salt can put you over the limit. In this case, you need to make sure that your food does not come with salt to begin with, and you should never add salt to any food. And moreover, if you look at the labels of the foods that you purchase, hopefully it will not have a lot of salt, but you can tell how much salt is in their proportion and you can have an idea about how much salt you're getting. Another problem with salt, if you continue to eat salt, you will not get the benefit from medications. Even the medications will be difficult to work, although you may be on 2, 3, 4, 5 blood pressure medications and your blood pressure may still be resistant to go down. Number four, increase the potassium in your diet. So if you have more potassium in your diet, your body will screed and get rid of the sodium. So where does the potassium comes from vegetables and fruits? When you're in a keto diet, that may be a difficult to achieve, but even when you're in a keto diet or any other low carb diet, I would strongly recommend to have high potassium in your diet. Again, that comes from vegetables and fruits. You can go with the low carbohydrate vegetables and fruits, which we have videos about. Definitely check them out as well. Number five, number five is limit the alcohol. Now, small alcohol consumption, like a one glass of wine or one, like a one and a half ounce of liquor or, you know, a 12 ounce of beer can be beneficial. But when you do it excessively, it will definitely cause the opposite and it will cause high blood pressure and it will cause insulin resistance as well. Now, smoking is the number six. You got to stop smoking. Smoking definitely kills your endothelium. We discussed about this before. Your blood pressures will be destroyed, will be stiff. When your veins and arteries are stiff, your blood pressure will continue to rise, no matter what you do. So you have to quit smoking today. It's easier said than done, but yes, you got to do it. Number seven, you can cut back on the caffeine. Caffeine is definitely something that can raise blood pressure in some people, not always. It's interesting that it can raise your blood sugar as well. That's another problem. But if you're a regular coffee drinker, you may not see that problem as much, but you can test it yourself. If you're if you're drinking coffee and your blood pressure is going up for you, then maybe you should cut back on the caffeine a little bit and maybe go for the decaf. Number eight is reduce your stress. So if you are a type A personality always stressed out about different things, it could be your family, it could be the money, it could be the life, health, whatever it may be. The more you stress yourself about things, the more stress hormones you will make. And those stress hormones, unfortunately, will definitely put a toll on you. All this adrenaline discharge, all the sympathetic nervous system activation will definitely keep your blood pressure high. And you will have to pay for the consequences. Unfortunately, number nine is, like we said, monitor your blood pressure regularly. Now, your blood pressure will change during the day. It may be high, higher in the morning in some cases, or sometimes it goes high in the afternoon. When you first start to get blood pressure, your blood pressure will be a little mobiles. It's going to be going up and down labile. So basically that's your way of understanding where your blood pressure stands. And maybe if you're in a medication, take the medication accordingly. If your blood pressure tends to spike in the morning, maybe take it at night. But having an understanding of blood pressure spikes at different times of the day will help you understand. And of course, to understand if you're getting benefit from your exercise and your diet, you may want to keep checking blood pressure to see that it's coming down. Which will give you a great motivation to keep doing it. Number 10, get the support. You know, you need to really share with your friends. It's not something to blame or something to be ashamed of. If you have a blood pressure problem that you're watching this video, that's great. Share this with other people. Make sure you understand. They understand. Your family should understand that you have a blood pressure problem. So they should probably change their diet as well. Reduce salt, reduce sodium, more potassium in their diet, exercising together. Definitely, as a whole family, getting into this healthy pattern will definitely help you. I would suggest also supplements can help. For example, garlic is a known remedy for blood pressure. Hibiscus is another one. It's a great tea. Weight protein can help the blood pressure reduction as well. And interestingly, weight protein can reduce your triglycerides as well. Fish oil can also reduce your blood pressure, especially the EPA. So I would definitely suggest using fish oil. Some pharmaceutical fish oils are better than the over the counters because EPA component is a little bit more beneficial than the DHA, although they're both beneficial. But having a high concentration enough may be difficult with the supplements when it comes to fish oil sometimes. I hope this video helped you guys. And if it did, please give it a thumbs up and share it with your friends and subscribe. See you in the next video.