Anne W. Hansen 
Meditation, a mind-body practice is proved to boost relaxation, shows promise as a means of keeping your blood pressure in control.
Blood pressure can be defined as a measurement of the force of blood against the walls of your arteries and can become elevated due to a number of factors such as age-related narrowing of the arteries, underlying medical problems, and excessive sodium intake.
By applying meditation to manage your blood pressure, you may be able to enhance your defense against heart disease, stroke, and chronic kidney disease.
The Problem: What Causes Hypertension?
At the time of the stress response, a substance called vasopressin is released, that inhibits the arteries and leads to hiked hydraulic pressure in our circulation of blood. This is sped up by the faster beating heart which we also encounter when stressed.
Usually, this stress working becomes lingering, and so our resting heart rate and vaso-constriction levels are soaring enough to give us a permanent state of hypertension or chronically raised blood pressure.
This is the term to explain what happens when our systolic blood pressure reaches 140 or our diastolic reading reaches 90 (Systolic blood pressure is the top number in a blood pressure reading; diastolic blood pressure is the bottom number.)
The pressure that this places on our hearts is crucial and is a candidate for the highest single source of early death in our world at present.
Sadly, only half of all those affected by hypertension know that they have it. Even in countries where the investigation is reasonably immense, less than half of those who do know they have the condition is adequately managing it.
And the majority of those who are actively controlling the situation are doing so using medications, which can have very harmful side effects.
How Might Meditation Work?
Whilst researchers have still to determine how meditation might lower blood pressure, it is considered that the practice may affect activity in the autonomic nervous system which controls blood pressure.
Meditation appears to calm activity in the sympathetic nervous system also known to narrow the blood vessels in response to stress and hikes up activity in the parasympathetic nervous system which is known to promote widening of the blood vessels.
The Science Behind Meditation and Blood Pressure
Transcendental meditation which is a type of meditation that includes silently repeating a word, sound, or phrase in order to stop distracting thoughts from entering the mind may be beneficial for controlling blood pressure, as per a 2008 analysis of nine clinical trials.
Investigators also determined that practicing transcendental meditation may have the potential to decrease systolic and diastolic blood pressure by approximately 4.7 and 3.2 mm Hg, respectively.
It should be also recognized that an earlier research review (published in 2004) sized up to five clinical trials and discovered a lack of good-quality studies to support the use of transcendental meditation for management of blood pressure.
Using Meditation for High Blood Pressure
As scientists have yet to prove that meditation can virtually decrease your blood pressure, it is crucial not to depend solely on meditation as a means of keeping your blood pressure in control.
In order to attain and maintain normal blood pressure levels, you should also follow a healthy diet, limit your intake of sodium and alcohol, exercise on regular basis, maintain a healthy weight, and avoid smoking.
If you are keen on using meditation to manage high blood pressure, Consult your doctor about adding meditation to your treatment program. Also, keep in mind that self-treating and avoiding or delaying standard care can have serious results.
How Meditation Helps With Reducing High Blood Pressure?
When we use meditation, our heart rate likely to fall by an average of five beats per minute, we discharge less vasopressin, and we encounter dilation of our arteries, especially in our peripheries. The net consequence for people with higher than normal average BP counts is that there are notable falls in systolic and diastolic blood pressure counts.
There have been a lot of studies on the impacts of practicing meditation and relaxation techniques on this problem. It has been proved that meditation using personalized mantras is two and a half times more beneficial than muscle relaxation exercises for lowering high blood pressure, and is more productive still than education programmes on diet and lifestyle.
And once we start this process of meditation, a noble cycle of arterial softening and lower blood pressure emanate which means we decrease the risks of all the related conditions which can taint our lives when our blood pressure readings are forever high.
What is more, the steady sense of being agitated all the time and never truly being able to sit back is taken care of thanks to the harmonizing impacts of meditation on the nervous system.
For those with low blood pressure, you can be sure the impact is equally as powerful. It is proof to just how intelligent the body is when it is allowed to rest and repair at a deep level. For while the meditation is famous for lowering high blood pressure, if one has a problem with low blood pressure, you can be certain that by doing this practice your blood pressure will regulate towards the normal range.
And for those not yet impaired, the odds of you falling nasty of this most prevalent of conditions will be greatly decreased.
