How to lower your blood pressure?

• Take a warm bath or shower. Stay in your shower or bath for at least 15 minutes and enjoy the warm water.
• Do a breathing exercise. Take a deep breath from your core, hold your breath for about two seconds, then slowly exhale.
• Relax!

A meta-analysis of 65 studies suggests that aerobic and resistance exercise can significantly lower blood pressure, especially for men (4).

In a 2013 study, sedentary older adults who participated in aerobic exercise training lowered their blood pressure by an average of 3.9 percent systolic and 4.5 percent diastolic (5). These results are as good as some blood pressure medications.

As you regularly increase your heart and breathing rates, over time your heart gets stronger and pumps with less effort. This puts less pressure on your arteries and lowers your blood pressure.

How much activity should you strive for?

A 2019 report by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association advises moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity for 40-minute sessions, three to four times per week (6).

If finding 40 minutes at a time is a challenge, there may still be benefits when the time is divided into three or four 10- to 15-minute segments throughout the day (7).

The American College of Sports Medicine makes similar recommendations (8).

But you don’t have to run marathons. Increasing your activity level can be as simple as:

Just do it regularly and work up to at least half an hour per day of moderate activity.

One example of moderate activity that can have big results is tai chi. A 2017 review on the effects of tai chi and high blood pressure shows an overall average of a 15.6 mm Hg drop in systolic blood pressure and a 10.7 mm Hg drop in diastolic blood pressure compared with no exercise at all (9).

A 2014 review on exercise and lowering blood pressure found that there are many combinations of exercise that can lower blood pressure (10).

These exercises include: