4. Just stretch
When researchers at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada studied the effect of walking on older adults with hypertension, they found that a control group of people assigned to do simple stretching exercises actually had lower blood pressure readings than those who walked.
“We stumbled into this by accident,” says study author Philip Chilibeck, professor of kinesiology at the University of Saskatchewan. That finding led toa formal studycomparing the two activities. The result: Five days a week of stretching for 30 minutes led to greater improvements in blood pressure than five days of 30-minute walks.
Stretching seems to literally stretch a person’s blood vessels, which reduces arterial stiffness, lowering blood pressure, Chilibeck says. He recommends gently stretching the big muscles in the lower body as follows:
To stretch your hamstring muscles (back of the legs), place your foot on a low stool or step and lean forward until you feel the stretch in the back of your leg.
To stretch your quadriceps (front of the thighs), lie on your side with your knee bent behind you. Grab your foot and pull it back toward your butt, feeling the stretch in your front thigh.
Stretch the calves by placing your foot against a wall and leaning forward until you feel the stretch in the back of the lower leg.
Hold each stretch for 30 seconds, then take a break, Chilibeck advises. Repeat the stretch three or four times with both legs. “This is especially useful for people who tend not to be very active,” Chilibeck says. “And it will improve the flexibility of your joints to boot.”
5. Work wall sits into your workout
A review of 270 studies, published in 2023 in theBritish Journal of Sports Medicine(BJSM), found that isometric exercises —and wall sits in particular— are effective in lowering blood pressure. In fact, researchers found that these types of exercises — where you hold your body in one position, like a wall sit or a plank — are almost twice as effective at lowering blood pressure compared with just doing cardio-intensive activities, like running and biking.
“It’s the most effective form of exercise if your goal is to lower blood pressure,” says Victoria Maizes, M.D., a professor of medicine, family medicine and public health at the University of Arizona.
Personal trainer April Hattori says wall sits are better for your joints than squats, andshe demonstrates how to do them in this AARP video.
Ready to give it a try? Experts recommend holding the position for 20 or 30 seconds when starting out, though you should talk to your doctor before starting any new exercise program. You can build up to more time as your body gets used to the exercise. Aim for three sessions of isometric exercises each week.
6. Listen to some calming tunes
What you listen tocan affect your blood pressure, and if you’re looking to lower your numbers, research suggests that something with a slow tempo is key.
A 2022 article published in the journalCureusfound that music with a slower tempo helped slow the heart rate of study participants; fast music sped it up. The slow music also helped lower participants’ blood pressure, whereas the fast music caused it to rise.
Janish Kothari, M.D., a cardiologist in Jersey City, New Jersey, explains that music helps “by countering the mechanisms of the sympathetic nervous system, slowing your heart rate, releasing endorphins, [and] creating a stimulation of the vagus nerve, which causes dilation of those blood vessels — and all that will lower the blood pressure.”
7. Cut down on plastic packaging
Ready-to-eat meals are convenient when you’re in a hurry, but research suggests their packaging may not be the best for your blood pressure.
Bisphenol A (BPA) or BPA replacements that make plastic bendable can leach into food when heated in the microwave, anda 2024 studyin the journalNutrientsfound an association between increased BPA concentrations in the urine of people who ate ready-to-eat meals and an increase in blood pressure.
BPA can also be found in the lining of soda cans, though some manufacturers are phasing the chemical out. Anolder studypublished in the journalHypertensioncompared the blood pressure of people who drank out of cans to those who drank out of glass bottles and found that people who drank from cans had higher levels of BPA in their urine and also higher blood pressure readings than those who drank from glass bottles. The authors note that their findings add to previous research that reached similar conclusions.
“It's sort of one of these invisible things that we don't necessarily pay that much attention to,” the University of Arizona’s Maizes says.
8. Go ahead and eat that piece of dark chocolate
Candy doesn’t typically make lists for its health benefits, but dark chocolatecanbe an exception. One reason is that it has heart-protective properties and can lower your blood pressure, according to2024 researchpublished in the journalNutrients. Dark chocolate activates nitric oxide, which relaxes and widens the blood vessels and improves blood flow.
“It (the nitric oxide) reduces inflammation, and it helps lower blood pressure because it reduces arterial stiffness,” Maizes says. This stiffness, which occurs with age, hampers the heart to expand and contract as it should, according to a 2023 article in the journalClinical Hypertension.
9. Take at least 8,200 steps a day
You may have heard that you need to get in 10,000 steps a day for good health, but it looks like 8,200 may be the magic number if you’re hoping to keep your blood pressure in check, according toa 2022 studyfrom researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, published in the journalNature. The study, which included more than 6,000 people with a median age of 57, used electronic health records and data from their Fitbit devices to reach this conclusion.
Study participants who achieved 8,200 daily steps had lower rates of high blood pressure and other health conditions, including obesity and diabetes.
Can’t get 8,200 steps in? Though it may not make a significant dent in your blood pressure numbers,taking just 2,337 stepscan lower your odds of dying from cardiovascular disease, according to research published in 2023 in theEuropean Journal of Preventive Cardiology.
10. Adopt the “blood pressure diet”
Looking for a reliable way to lower high blood pressure? Try the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, which ranks at the top of the American Heart Association’s list of best heart-healthy diets.
Researchers from UCSF analyzed the effects of various lifestyle approaches to lowering hypertension, and they estimated that widespread adoption ofthe DASH diet— which emphasizes fruits and vegetables, lean protein and low sodium — could prevent 26,000 heart-related events and nearly 3,000 deaths.
The researchers only focused on people with stage 1 hypertension, notes Sims, the UCSF epidemiologist and a coauthoron the study, published in the journalHypertension. “The benefits are probably bigger because if we all followed the diet, we would stop people from even being in the higher-risk groups,” she adds.
Similar to the Mediterranean diet, the DASH eating plan calls for:
- 6 to 8 servings of grains a day
- 4 to 5 servings of fruit a day
- 4 to 5 servings of vegetables a day
- 6 or fewer 1-ounce servings of lean meat, poultry or fish a day
- 2 to 3 servings of low-fat dairy a day
- 4 to 5 weekly servings of nuts, beans or seeds
- Sparing amounts of salt, sugar and fat
And while it may take time to get used to all the extra fiber, the results speak for themselves.
Editor's note: This story, originally published Nov. 3, 2022, has been updated to reflect new information.
