Should we exercise when our blood pressure is high?

Question

I normally can control my blood pressure (120/80) by managing to have healthy life style, following my nutritionist's diet guide, enough rest/sleep, no stress and regular exercise. But this morning (GMT +8 / Malaysia Time) I ate just a small spoon of lamb at my friend's wedding party. No wonder I kinda got headache after that, so I just took a nap as soon as I was home. And felt better when I woke up. Tonight when I checked my blood pressure is 140/90.

I usually do body weight exercise at night and walk/jog in the morning. I already walked for 5.5km this morning and did 36 classic push ups and 10 push ups with my feet higher on a bench while I took rest near the beautiful lake then walked home. I just feel something is missing now, really. Is it safe if I exercise right now? I usually do ladders: 3 sets of 6 reps push ups, 2 sets of 4 reps seated dips in, 2 sets of 5 reps deep push ups, 2 sets of 6 reps of bear walks.

I searched on and on and googled around but found nothing about this. What I found from google were always boring references of things I already do regularly, like balance diet, regular exercise, etc etc.

Answer 1

I would like to share with you my experience. I recently discovered that I had high BP and was put on medicine. Before you start doing exercise with weights you need to double check with the Doctor + you need to ensure that you DON’T stop your breath while lifting weights. There is a danger of BP shooting up if you hold your breath for long.

Now to start with what has worked for me: Start with aerobic exercises first. Make sure that you do Aerobic exercise for 30 mintutes and light weights for around 10 minutes. Slowly increase the time that you spend doing weights. You can reduce your aerobic time to minimum 15 minutes but never give up aerobic exercises. IMO you get best results when you do both forms of exercises. If you follow your exercises regime for 2 months you will be a much fitter person and blood pressure should be closer to normal. It has worked amazingly for me . Since you are young you might as well fix this problem for ever. Also remember to cool down post work out. This is of paramount importance. Once you are done, lie down on a mat and rest for 5-10 minutes concentrating on your breath and breathing deeply.

IMO if you don’t have any physical condition like Unbalanced Thyroid or Cholestrol, BP might purely be a lifestyle disease for you. You can do wonders by losing weight/controlling stress and reducing salt intake.

Answer 2

You definitely have to manage blood pressure as best you can. There are a couple things you have to keep in mind with exercise:

• Anaerobic exercise will increase the blood pressure during exertion
• Aerobic exercise will slow the heart rate and increase the volume (but not blood pressure)

After both types of exercise your resting blood pressure will be lower. However, if you already deal with high blood pressure you need to get it under control before you do anything anaerobic (like any type of strength training). In short, if your BP is already high, doing the dips will make it peak while you are exercising.

As your answer hinted at, you have to make sure your diet is in order so you can be in a good place to get your exercise in. It also might be a good idea to talk to your doctor about the types of exercise they would recommend. You might be best served by sticking with purely aerobic exercise.

My mother-in-law deals with high blood pressure and vertigo, and she enjoys Jazzercise safely. When she has an episode she will back off the exercise until she can get everything back under control.

Answer 3

Both aerobic and anaerobic exercise will increase the pressure inside your body.

Aerobic exercise speeds up your heart rate (baring the use of rate limiting drugs). Stroke volume (the volume of blood ejected from the heart with each beat) is also increased with aerobic exercise. For both reasons, since the vascular system is a closed pathway, blood pressure goes up.

Anaerobic exercise is more apt to increase your inner thoracic cavity pressure (pressure inside your chest/stomach) than your blood pressure. An exception might be doing dynamic-anaerobic weight lifting movements (walking lunges) where the movement is still classified as anaerobic but still taxes your body enough your heart rate increases.

Working in a hospital setting our limitations for blood pressures that we don't allow patients to exercise are over 180/106 or below 90/60. Those limitations also change if a patient is symptomatic (light headed, dizzy, nauseous, chest pain, etc.).

If your blood pressure has started becoming gradually higher you should probably go talk to your primary care physician to discuss if anything needs to be pursued. If it was a one time deal you should be fine (exceptions being symptomatic). All different things can affect your blood pressure: Stress, Sleep, Fluid retention, even body position (laying down, seated, standing).

Answer 4

You need to think if you've done anything despite eating lamb that day, because it should not be such a powerful trigger. Maybe you've been under stress or lack of sleep, then a little lamb just was a trigger.

My experience was like this. Eating meat just bothers my health, stress is a mighty contributor, lack of sleep, coffee... I have dumped pills and first thing first I was on to was meditation. Immediately I felt better.

Bike exercise is by my opinion the best. I did pull ups, and felt good, but only in the morning. Red meat, only 1 day in a week. Smoothies every day. Dumped coffee. Why? Most doctors, and everybody else will tell you that one or two cups of coffee is healthy. Well it is not! From bp 125 coffee will raise you to bp 130. Just a little bit of stress or burger can get you to bp 140. Instead of coffee have dark chocolate every day as an antioxidant. Be disciplined!

When you measure a high bp do not exercise in that moment. You can maybe have a walk. Have shower and meditate. Eat a smoothie with vegetables that are known to lower bp, like beet.

Answer 5

Lesson's learned, I mustn't eat foods that I musn't eat, including just a small spoon of lamb, even at others' place/event, the trick : I should've been able to manage to get stuffed at home with my own diet based on my nutritionist's guide before getting to the party so all I could eat were just safe to hbp and healthy fruits like watermellon etc.

Since my headache was getting worst all I did yesterday was exercised/pushed myself to my limit that I think I could handle safely, it was just 10 light push ups with my hands on my bed and my feet on the floor, so that was less contraction, less satisfaction, that's the price I must pay for just a small spoon of lamb. And only 5 deep push ups with my feet just 15cm higher from the floor. I feel so guilty whenever I don't do my body-weight exercise like this.

I can exercise normally again starting from tonight, because I checked my blood pressure got back to normal again (120/80) recently, but I had to lie down on bed much longer than I wanted because I couldn't resist if my head felt like being hit by many nails with a hammer.

Anyone who's been fighting BPPV Vertigo and hbp with regular exercise and balanced diet like me is always welcomed to share experience here. Thanks.

Answer 6

If it were me, I would just take it easy and rest. Why risk it? Go see the doctor and make some life style changes. Some of the healthiest people in the world drop dead because they just over do it. Why be healthy and dead? Enjoy life and take care of your body. Remember, you are not a machine. My blood pressure was just a tad bit higher than yours today. I was going to go biking, and now, I will just watch it on television today. Be smart and keep a heart!

Answer 7

I have read this article on the topic and I think is a very good read and very informative piece of advice http://hypertensionnaturalremedies.com/is-it-safe-to-exercise-with-high-blood-pressure/