Yoga And Blood Pressure
The heart pumps blood throughout the body. Every time the heart pumps, a pressure is exerted on the blood vessels. This is known as blood pressure. Blood pressure or BP is normally measured on the upper arm. When the heart contracts to squeeze blood, it exerts a force, and the pressure thus created is called systolic pressure. When the heart muscles relax, the pressure is reduced. This reduced pressure is called diastolic pressure. The normal pressure of a human being is 120/80, where 120 is the systolic pressure and 80 is the diastolic pressure.
If the BP is 15 to 20 millimeters higher than this normal range over an extended period of time, it is called hypertension. Hypertension can be caused due to a variety of factors including genetics, stress, anxiety, diet, and lack of exercise. Hypertension also makes the body susceptible to a host of problems such as strokes, heart attacks, heart failure, and aneurysms. Unfortunately, the fast paced and stressful lives that we lead, combined with improper diet and lack of exercise, means that younger and younger people have started suffering from hypertension.
Modern medicine has come up with numerous wonderful medicines that help to control the symptoms of hypertension. As long as you keep taking these medicines, you should not face further problem. Unfortunately, these medicines only treat the symptoms, so you are stuck with ingesting them every day for the rest of your life. If instead of just treating the symptoms, you want to try and actually get to the root cause of hypertension, you will have to go a couple of thousand years into the past, and enter the magical world of Yoga.
Yoga Asanas To Regulate Blood Pressure
Yoga is an ancient Indian system of exercise and therapy that is rapidly gaining in popularity all over the modern world. Regular practice of Yoga can help to alleviate stress and anxiety. It also provides the body with a gentle, yet extremely effective form of exercise. Forward bends such as the Paschimottana Asana help to increase blood flow to the brain, reduce stress, have a calming effect on the nervous system, and greatly help in reducing high BP.
Inverted postures such as the Hala Asana and the Sarvanga Asana allow blood to flow naturally to the brain with the force of gravity. These postures nourish the brain and help to regularize blood pressure. Yoga breathing exercises and meditation techniques also help to alleviate stress and have proven to be extremely beneficial to those suffering from high BP.
