Lowering High Blood Pressure With Massage Therapy

High blood pressure touches many lives. Many people spend money on drugs for lowering their blood pressure every year. Pharmaceutical drugs help lower it, but also have dangerous side effects, including liver damage. In this article we'll take a closer look at high blood pressure. Then we'll look at how including massage in your health routine can help you control your hypertension.

Blood pressure is the measurement of how hard blood pushes on the arterial walls as it move through the body. If you have hypertension your heart is working way too hard and your artery walls are hardening. The fact that your heart is overworking puts you at greater danger of developing heart disease. It also causes an increased risk of kidney problems and blindness. In order to avoid these terrible health problems, you must work on lowering your blood pressure.

A number of factors can cause hypertension. Your arteries could be narrowing as a result of plague build up. Your heart could be beating too hard pumping a larger than normal volume of blood through the body. For many people the reason for developing this disorder is unknown.

Many people don't know that they have hypertension. While many people will get this condition as they age, African Americans are much more likely to develop it. Having a family history of the disorder and being overweight are two other risk factors for the disease. It's important that you get checked on a regular basis to make sure yours is normal. If it's high you should work with your doctor to try to control it. You wouldn't want to have to health problems associated with letting the problem go and not doing anything.

There are many lifestyle changes you can make to help you control hypertension. Reducing the amount of sodium in your diet, getting regular exercise and meditation are just a few ways to help you control it. Another way is massage. Massage therapy calms the nervous system. It causes relaxing-feel-good neurotransmitters like dopamine to enter the bloodstream. This calming influence helps reduce the amount of pressure your blood puts on your arterial walls. Getting massage on a regular basis can be help you manage your blood pressure.

Get a note from your doctor before going to your local massage therapist's office. Your doctor must give the okay before you start using massage to help manage hypertension. Make sure you let your massage therapist know about your condition and give your therapist the note from your doctor giving you permission to get massage.

Once you start including massage as part of your health routine, you'll notice the calming effect. You'll feel better physically and you'll be less dependent on drugs for lowering your blood pressure.