High blood pressure or hypertension means having a blood pressure reading of more than 140 systolic and 90 diastolic on two different occasions without being on any medicines. Your risk of getting high blood pressure is more if you are more than 45 years of age, have high blood sugar, are overweight, have a family history of high blood pressure, or have kidney or adrenal disease.
At times high blood pressure comes with old age and a part of it is unavoidable. While it may be impossible for some people to avoid it totally, it is possible to keep the range of blood pressure within a reasonable value so that harm can be minimized.
People who consume a high salt diet have a tendency to retain water in the body and this puts a higher strain on the heart. People in high risk category are advised to get their blood pressure checked at least once in six months to avoid getting silent damage to their heart and kidneys. The same goes for eating a diet containing too many processed foods, meats and canned soups as they are very high in their salt content.
Certain cold and flu medicines like decongestants, oral contraceptive pills, anti depressants etc. may also increase your risk of high blood pressure temporarily.
Too many cups of coffee increase anxiety and increase blood pressure for the time being. It is therefore advisable to restrict your intake to two cups a day.
Stress resulting from poor diet, too much alcohol, smoking and lack of sleep can all increase your blood pressure.
People who are habitual alcoholic drinkers have a higher tendency for getting high blood pressure as alcohol eventually hardens our arteries and ups the force that the heart has to apply to push blood through them.
If you are in the pre- hypertensive range, that is if your blood pressure varies from 121-139 for the systolic one and 80-89 for the diastolic values it should ring alarm bells for a possible future high blood pressure. One should then take all precautions to keep body weight and sugar in the normal range.