My doctor is concerned, as am I, about my blood pressure, but I refuse to go on a low salt diet, because it's not the salt. It's work.
I was recently on holiday but unfortunately did not take hourly bp readings. I do, however, have readings I take at work. The "ranges", at least as far as the British are concerned, are along these lines:
systolic: <120: optimal, 120-129: normal, 130-139: high-normal, 140-159: mild hyper
diastolic: < 80: optimal, 80-84: normal, 85-89: high-normal, 90-99: mild hyper
In the US, medicalization is probably more aggressive. I wouldn't be surprised if guidelines called for drug therapy for anything at or above 121/81. Ithe rule of thumb used to be that systolic of 100 + your age should be considered perfectly normal. But the normal of Grampa's generation is now the hypertension of mine.
So, bracketing my holiday (shortly before, at work, and shortly after returning), my blood pressure eased down to a comfy 124-131/75-78. Diastolic in particular very good. By the end of a full week of working, had crept up to 141/85. Just for fun, I took a recreational dose of propanolol [How sad is it that my favorite drug is not psychoactive? I am a geezer. Or a goober. Or possibly both.], and it dropped to 123/72.
4 comments:
My MD is really pushing the low salt option, not sold on it yet. We are starting the IN State Fair this weekend so low salt is not an option, you are missing the fried twinkie, fried pizza,and fried snickers bar. This year they are hawking the chocolate covered bacon. Add some cheese and we are talking some business. BTW, keep the monitoring going. As GI Joe says, know is half the battle.
I recommend this award-winning article on salt by Gary Taubes: http://www.nasw.org/awards/1999/99Taubesarticle1.htm
it IS work, and other associated stress. I've taken to going to the Doctor 30 to 60 minutes early, to just relax, and read, and control my respiration, heart rate and BP with biofeedback, and I drop 20 points off both scores. With yoga at home I can drop it another 10, but it's impractical to do yoga at the Doc's office. Your holiday pressures are fine.
We are all getting to be geezers now, except for RGK I think, who indulges recreationally more than the rest of us combined.... bt I'm working off of 8 year old data on that assumption.
i recently upped my fish oil intake to 3.6g EPA+DHA / day. and i think it just paid off with my BP.
on friday, i got lost on my way to a new doctor and was late, both of which are major stressors for me.
but my BP was only 104/70. i was really surprised.
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