If you experience severe headaches, fatigue, irregular heartbeat, and chest pain, you probably suffer from hypertension or high blood pressure. This condition can be caused by stress, lack of sleep, obesity, or other underlying diseases and sometimes even healthy people suffer from it. Luckily, there are some simple techniques that can help you relax your blood vessels and muscles to help keep your blood pressure under control.
There are 3 spots on your head and neck that can help you lower your blood pressure within a couple of minutes:
Find the first point behind your earlobe and draw an imaginary straight line downward to the center of your collarbone where you will find the second point. Using your fingers, gently massage your neck with soft movements up and down this line. Repeat 10 times on both sides of your neck.
The third point lies on your face at earlobe height about 1/2 cm from your ear. Massage it on each side with your fingertips for about a minute in a counter-clockwise circular movement.
Massaging these areas will relieve the tension in your neck muscles and restore proper blood flow to your brain.
GB 20, or the Wind Pool, is one of the most effective acupressure points for high blood pressure treatment. You can find these points right at the base of your skull, in the depression on both sides of your spine. Activate both of them simultaneously by applying a steady, but mild, pressure on them with your thumbs. In a minute or 2, you’ll feel that your headache has gotten much better.
Left nostril deep abdominal breathing will help you control the level of your blood pressure by relaxing your blood vessels and reducing stress hormones.
How to do it:
- Sit on the floor or in a chair in a comfortable position with your back straight.
- Place your left hand on your abdomen.
- Close your right nostril with your right thumb.
- Take a deep breath through your left nostril, hold for a few seconds, then breathe out.
- Breathe slowly and deeply only through your left nostril for about 3-5 minutes.
Bhramari pranayama, or hissing bee breathing, will help you instantly ease your mind and get rid of the headaches and migraines associated with hypertension.
How to do it:
- Sit down on the floor in a comfortable position with your back straight.
- Place your index fingers on the cartilage of both ears.
- Take a deep breath in.
- As you exhale, make a humming sound, like a bee, and put mild pressure on your ear cartilage at the same time.
- Repeat this exercise 7-10 times.
It turns out that listening to soothing music like classical, Celtic, or Indian can help drop the level of your blood pressure, especially if you combine it with breathing exercises or meditation. This happens because this kind of music produces a calming effect on your body and reduces the stress hormone, cortisol.
Researchers believe that the music that might help reduce your blood pressure usually has very few changes in volume or rhythm, doesn’t have any lyrics, and has parts that are repeated at certain intervals.
In some cases, high blood pressure can be caused by dehydration. When you’re dehydrated, the volume of blood in your body decreases and your peripheral resistance, on the contrary, increases.
To avoid this condition, every time you start feeling the symptoms of hypertension, try to drink a glass or 2 of pure water. This will help you restore an adequate volume of blood in your body and reduce your blood pressure.
