Breathing Yoga for Stress

Stress is a factor that often contributes to ill health in moms – especially heart attacks and hypertension. All stress and tension is hard on the heart as it makes it pump more strongly.
If you are a person who is naturally prone to stress or if you work or home environment is overly stressful, you need to learn how to keep your stress levels down.
Doing so is the only way that you will be able to reduce your blood pressure if stress is a major contributory factor, so learning how to effectively combat stress is essential.
There are many different things that you can study and learn about which will help you to master the art of controlling stress.
The first thing that you should consider is taking up a discipline or hobby like yoga or meditation that can teach various different techniques for keeping stress under control.
The best thing is that as a starting point, there is a great deal of the information that you need to see whether yoga or mediation is ‘your thing' on the net, for free. This means that you can start learning and practicing yoga or meditation in the comfort of your own home and that once you have mastered the basics, you can then take things another step further by joining a local group or class.
Practicing yoga is a great way of acquiring the discipline that you need to be able to switch off at those times when stress might otherwise take over. As you can read, there are various different types of yoga that you can practice ranging from ‘gentle' (sometimes called ‘hatha') yoga to the far more impressive sounding ‘power' (or ‘vinyasa') yoga.
Another factor about yoga to consider is that there are several yogic asanas (poses) that are believed to help relive high blood pressure as well. Various asanas such as suryanamaskar (the ‘sun pose'), matsyasana (the ‘fish pose'), vajrasana (the ‘thunderbolt pose') and shavasana (‘corpse pose') are all useful for reducing high blood pressure with regular practice. This is obviously another good reason for thinking of taking up yoga.
Even something as simple as disciplining yourself to breathe deeply and slowly whenever you encounter a situation which otherwise might become stressful can be an extremely powerful way of learning to control your emotions. As with the other disciplines highlighted in this chapter, there are many different ways of teaching yourself how to breathe deeply and slowly when things start to go wrong, but perhaps the easiest strategy for learning how to control your breathing is to adopt the Pavlov method of learning to breathe deeply.
It is one that I would definitely recommend you adopt to teach yourself how to breathe deeply and slowly whenever stress threatens. Do this and you can significantly reduce the amount of stress you feel in your life, which should in turn help to reduce your hypertension.

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Causes of High Blood Pressure in Women

As high blood pressure in women is such a horrible stealthy killer I thought it might be of use to look at the causes of the condition in the first place. Of course it looks like it can all be prevented with basic lifestyle changes.
There are two different types of high blood pressure, essential or primary hypertension and secondary hypertension. According to the American Heart Association, there is no single identifiable cause of primary hypertension, although the causes of secondary hypertension are usually relatively easily identifiable.
However, in the case of primary hypertension, there are many factors that are known to make the condition more likely, and it is a combination of these factors that most commonly causes high blood pressure. These factors include:
Being seriously fat! It stands to reason that the greater your body mass is, the harder your heart is going to have to work to pump blood around it. Consequently, there is an increase in pressure on the arterial walls as more blood is produced to supply the necessary oxygen and nutrients throughout your bigger than normal body mass.
Snoring! Sleep apnea – brief periods when you stop breathing whilst asleep – is also considered to be a contributory factor to having high blood pressure and is something that overweight people are particularly susceptible to.
Being a couch potato. Activity levels can also be a contributory factor. If you are relatively inactive or do not take any exercise, it tends to increase your heart rate, meaning that your heart works harder to pump blood around the body. And of course, it follows that if you are completely sedentary and do not take exercise, this is likely to exacerbate your weight problems as well.
Family history or genetics. It is a fact that high blood pressure can often run in particular families, with the condition being seen generation after generation. If therefore you have a family history of high blood pressure, it is quite likely that you will have a similar problem.
Tobacco use. Certain chemicals in cigarettes and tobacco itself can cause damage to blood vessel walls, thereby increasing the work that your heart has to do to pump blood around your body.
Stress can be a big contributory factor as far as high blood pressure is concerned.
Sodium intake. Excessive sodium intake can result in increased fluid retention, which in turn leads to increased blood pressure.
Potassium intake. Taking on board excessively low levels of potassium can result in elevated levels of sodium in body cells because potassium and sodium seek a natural balance in those cells. If one is therefore in the ascendancy, its characteristics are also more likely to be seen.
Excessive alcohol consumption can increase the risk of heart problems, particularly if this excessive consumption is continued for a significant period of time.
Secondary hypertension problems are generally caused by pre-existing medical conditions such as renal stenosis or some other form of renal disease or heart problems such as aortic coarctation.

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