High blood pressure is dangerous. It makes your heart work too hard and hardens your arteries. This increases your risk of heart disease and stroke. It can also lead to kidney disease and heart failure, so it's important to take steps to lower your blood pressure.
Dietary and lifestyle changes can help lower your blood pressure and keep it normal.
TweetIt's crucial to keep it in the normal range to lower the risk of other complications.
Aside from making changes to your food and lifestyle habits, certain natural herbs can also help you. These herbs fight inflammation, dilate blood vessels, and lower your blood pressure.
5 Herbs to Help Lower Your Blood Pressure
1. Garlic
Garlic contains allicin, which can lower your blood pressure. It has a range of well-documented benefits on the body besides lowering blood pressure. (1)
To get enough allicin in your diet, take 1 to 4 cloves every day. Fresh, raw garlic or dried garlic provides the most allicin.
2. Cardamom
Cardamom is a popular spice that's in a lot of South Asian dishes and helps to lower your blood pressure. A study on 20 blood pressure patients showed that 1.5 grams of cardamom taken two times daily helped reduce high blood pressure. (2)
Cardamom is an antioxidant with the ability to loosen blood clots. It's easy to add cardamom to recipes like desserts, soups, and stews.
3. Holy Basil
Also called tulsi, holy basil is native to India. This herb has plenty of medicinal benefits besides moderating blood pressure.
Holy basil is a known stress reliever and helps protect heart health. It's also a powerful antioxidant and inflammation fighter. Studies show that using basil extracts helps lower high blood pressure in patients. (3)
4. Hawthorn
Herbalists use the leaves, flowers, and berries of hawthorn to treat hypertension. It's often used in combination with prescription drugs.
Results from fourteen studies show that hawthorn extracts help improve heart conditions, including blood pressure and irregular heartbeat. (4) A UK study on diabetes patients showed that hawthorn extracts lowered high blood pressure. (5)
5. Cat's Claw
Cat's Claw is often used in Chinese medicine to lower blood pressure. It also helps prevent clots and increase blood circulation. It contains hirsutine, a natural calcium channel blocker.
Calcium channel blockers help block calcium from entering heart and blood vessels. Also, they widen and relax your blood vessels enabling smoother blood flow.
Some of these herbs are delicious additions to your cooking and give a fantastic twist to a dish. It's a lot easier to make healthy changes to lower your blood pressure if you already have a kitchen garden and can grow some of the herbs yourself.
Another important reminder! If you're on blood pressure drugs you should always to talk to your doctor before changing your diet.
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Yours in health and happiness,
Danette
P.S. Please share this article with your friends and family who have high blood pressure. And comment below…which of these herbs are you already using?