Posts tagged ‘health’

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How To Control High Blood Pressure?

December 5, 2011, 4:03 pm

It appears that everybody over the age of around forty is having problems with their blood pressure. There is such a thing as having low blood pressure but the difficulty sweeping Western society for the last twenty-five to thirty years is high blood pressure, which is also called hypertension in medical jargon.

Hypertension is a dangerous medical condition which can kill if not treated, yet it is frequently an indication of leading a bad lifestyle, so a sufferer can usually avoid hypertension by making a couple of lifestyle alterations. The time to instigate these alterations is as soon as you can, because the changes are sensible ones, but young bodies can take more abuse than older ones, so it is a good concept to keep an eye on your blood pressure from your mid thirties.

Age and ethnicity are factors in hypertension but there is naturally nothing you can do about that, yet the other factors are good for everybody, because they merely involve living a better lifestyle.

Being plump is a major factor in creating hypertension. The answer is obvious – if you are overweight, lose those extra pounds. Losing just ten pounds can reduce your blood pressure significantly.

Being inactive is another key factor in developing hypertension and is naturally linked with being overweight. Therefore, you can kill two birds with one stone by exercising more in order to lose weight. Eating excessive amounts of sodium (table salt) is another factor in high blood pressure, so this offers another chance to ‘double up’.

While you are attempting to lose weight in order to help reduce your hypertension, incorporate reduced-sodium recipes into your cooking habits. There are lots of low-sodium or low-salt recipes on the Internet and once you have been eating low-sodium for a week or ten days you will wonder why you ever used salt in the first place.

Salt is of course present in some foods more than others, so you will have to have some assistance in the beginning, but just not adding any salt or sugar to any of your food or drink is a decent beginning. Eating more fresh fruit and vegetables is another obvious thing to do. Strive not to use tinned foods as salt is often used to ‘pump up the flavour’ and preserve cheap ingredients in tins.

Smoking is not good for you. We all know that, however it also increases blood pressure and so does drinking too much alcohol on a frequent basis. These are difficult lifestyle changes to master, yet you could at least cut down.

Stress, fear, anger, worry and sleeplessness are also factors that increase hypertension and it is simple to see that they could all be interrelated. It is frequently said that exercise reduces stress and so that may now have a triple benefit. If you suffer from stress, meditation or yoga might help you as well.

In short, you can to do something about your hypertension. Some of the changes are not easy, yet just doing something on all these fronts will have an impact and maybe keep you off medication for the remainder of your life.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on several of topics, but is currently involved with work on foods for high blood pressure. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, just go to our site at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

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Adapting Examples Of Low Cholesterol Diets

December 5, 2011, 4:02 pm

Although more and more people are becoming aware that they ought to follow a low (er) cholesterol diet as they become older, they might not be aware of how to do this. People eat out a great deal more now than ever before or they have food delivered.

Regrettably most of the food eaten at or from these establishments has a poor record when it comes to controlling cholesterol. You will find it hard to impossible to follow a low cholesterol diet and eat junk food at the same time.

There are lots of examples of low cholesterol diets on the Net and it would be a useful idea for you to look at some of these until you find a chef’s recipes that match your tastes.

For instance, one chef might prefer vegetarian cooking and so would produce a collection of low cholesterol recipes containing vegetarian food, while another chef may have a penchant for fish and so would produce plenty of low cholesterol recipes involving fish.

Naturally, if you have more varied tastes then the world is your oyster and you can mix and match recipes from all over the world. There are several cultures that do not eat meat at all, for example, the Hindus. There are thousands of Hindu recipes which are obviously low in cholesterol or which could be easily modified by substituting olive oil for ghee as the fat in which to cook.

Or you might like the Japanese style of cooking, which uses a higher proportion of fish than people eat in the West. Fish is a very good source for example of HDL, or good, cholesterol. Japanese meals can be of several different styles. an unusual one of which is sushi, which has become favourite with the trend-setters.

Chinese and Thai food also contains far less meat that traditional Western recipes. They also tend to cook using soya oil, which is a substance known to reduce the level of LDL or ‘bad’ cholesterol. If, when you look at traditional recipes from these countries, you see something you could improve on then go ahead and adapt it.

For instance, if you go to a Chinese restaurant, you always get white rice. Why not substitute brown rice? The same goes for Thai food. Brown rice is fed to prisoners in Thai gaols, so it is coupled with low class, hence Thais eat white rice. But you do not have to.

If you like barbecues, you may have to lay off the steaks, chops, sausages and burgers, but you can still barbecue all types of fish, crabs, prawns and lobster. Eels are good for a barbecue too and so is unleaven bread and some vegetables such as sweet corn.

There are so many examples of low cholesterol diets that eating in this way does not have to become monotonous. In fact, it might just open your eyes to some of the other ways of cooking going on in the world. You may just end up realizing that most of the meals in your life up to now have been fairly similar.

While you are looking for examples of low cholesterol diets, remember that adaptation and substitution are the best strategies – become adaptable and enjoy your new, healthier diet.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on numerous topics, but is now concerned with lowering cholesterol without medication. If you want to know more, please visit our web site at What Foods Lower Cholesterol?

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Stress And Heart Disease

December 4, 2011, 3:09 pm

Stress and heart disease are well-known to be closely linked. How many times have you seen someone suffer a stressful moment and die in films? This is not a joke – it one of the few occasions that films are telling the truth.

Naturally, there are other factors of heart disease as well: obesity and smoking to name but two, but stress can be the final nail in your coffin if you do not look after yourself.

There are a number of things you can do to minimize the danger of stress and heart disease. These include taking more exercise, learning how to relax and not smoking.

Learn how to reduce your stress by other methods than smoking and drinking and maybe you will not fall victim to stress and heart disease.

Financial stress is one the most common causes of stress and is also one of the most problematic to treat. The reason why financial stress is a problem to conquer is that if you actually care about your financial predicament, you are probably already doing everything that you can.

If you are already doing all you can to alleviate your financial situation and you are still experiencing financial stress, then you will feel trapped.

Office stress can grow very easily, but the reasons are wide-ranging. Office stress can start because you are worried about you job or because you think that you are an outsider. Office stress can also rear its ugly head because your boss is over-demanding or because you know that your career is beyond you.

There are methods of combatting office stress, but it is you who has to start the ball rolling.

A stress headache is a very real occurrence. In fact, it is reckoned that the majority of headaches are stress related. it is not for nothing, that |when people feel that they are losing it, that their hands go to their head.

Pain can be a result and this is almost certainly a stress headache. Frequently a stress headache will start with tension in the neck and shoulders and will change into pain in the temples, behind the eyes – this is a true stress headache.

The symptoms of stress take numerous forms and sometimes the reason for the stress dictates the symptoms of stress that the sufferer will experience. For example. If the cause of the stress was an attack, then some of the symptoms of stress might be flashbacks and nightmares.

However, if the cause of your stress is job related, symptoms of stress might be psychosomatic illnesses so you can get a day off or you might suffer a non-existent feeling of rejection by your colleagues.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is at present concerned with wholesale first aid kits. If you have an interest in RC vehicles, please go over to our website now at First Aid Courses Online.

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