Blood Pressure

In this episode of Oh Health Yeah, we dive into why blood pressure is about more than just those two numbers at your yearly checkup. We explore how you can take the driver's seat of your own health metrics by understanding what that force against your arteries is actually telling you.
We discuss:
The Anxiety Connection: How a "go, go, go" lifestyle keeps the body in a stressed state, directly impacting your heart and blood pressure.
The Power of Breath: Why simple nasal breathing creates a chemical reaction to dilate blood vessels and lower stress hormones like cortisol.
Recovery Windows: How a 12 hour break from food can shift your body out of a high pressure state and into true rest and recovery.
 Fueling for Metrics: The specific foods (and a few convenient alternatives) that naturally support your cardiovascular system.
From the surprising impact of mouthwash to why your "smoke break" might actually be a breathing break in disguise, we provide the tools to help you feel in control of your health trajectory. Tune in to learn how to master your metrics and lower your internal pressure.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome into the Oh Health Yeah podcast, brought to you by Healthy is Wellness. As you all know, our mission is to empower you to take control of your health and elicit a little bit of curiosity in your life when it comes to the world of wellness. Thank you so much for tuning in today. And if you have loved ones or friends that you think would benefit from this, share it with them. Let's get this thing going. What is up? Healthy is family. We are back with another edition of the Oh Healthia podcast. Today, we're going to talk about something that is talked about about a zillion billion cajillion times in the world of health and wellness. We're going to talk about blood pressure. Not only what is blood pressure, but more so what can you actually do to take control of blood pressure? This is one of those metrics that a lot of people go into their yearly exam, they throw their arm in the cuff, or the doc listens to their blood pressure, and then the doc's like, okay, you got a high BP. Here's some ads. Here's something you got to get on. We're not anti-medications in the world, but the biggest thing with us is we want you to feel in control of the trajectory of those metrics. And so we're going to talk about some things that you can actually do to take control of your blood pressure if it is something that's important to you. The way I'm going to start this thing off is by reading our definition of blood pressure. So from a healthy as wellness scope, your blood pressure is the force of blood pushing against your arteries. Ensuring your blood pressure is in a healthy range is critical for reducing risk of artery damage, blood clots, heart attack, stroke, osteoporosis, and even sleep apnea. So when we're looking at blood pressure, we're looking at the force of blood pushing against your arteries. And the number that the majority of us hear all the time is 120 over 80. People say if your blood pressure is 120 over 80, you're in a good spot. If it's not, if you're a little higher than that, there could be a multitude of reasons behind that. But we're going to talk about if your blood pressure naturally sits higher, let's say it's 140 over 80, 150 over 90, whatever it is, how can you actually bring that number down? There's three main healthiest challenges that I want to talk about today that actually play into blood pressure. And I have used these challenges in our clients' lives to help them reduce their blood pressure to the point where clients have had me get a different blood pressure device and take their blood pressure again because they didn't believe it was real after they instilled some of these habits in their life. So the first one that I'm going to talk about today is breath and the way that we breathe. Oftentimes, breathing plays into blood pressure very directly. We have a challenge, actually, a four-part challenge, four-part series that dives into the way that we breathe. Breath part one dives into a thing called nasal breathing. The reason behind that, when you breathe through your nose, your body secretes a thing called nitric oxide. What nitric oxide does is it decreases resting heart rate, cortisol, blood pressure, stress hormones, all of those things. So one of the ways that we like to frame that challenge is can you breathe through your nose for the first hour of the day to decrease your cortisol, blood pressure, resting heart rate? This is one challenge that I'll pull for people often if their blood pressure is high and it's something that's a concern for them. Hey, for the first hour of your day, can you focus on breathing through your nose? And it doesn't just have to be the first hour. Maybe it's whenever you can think about it, can you focus on breathing through your nose because of that nitric oxide that is created and the fact that that brings down resting heart rate and blood pressure? Zach, do you have anything on nasal breathing?

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Uh, the only thing that I would touch on with nasal breathing, breathing, is the reason that nasal breathing does all of those things you listed is because it dilates your blood vessels, it opens them up, which allows it to alleviate your blood pressure and slow your breathing down and all that stuff. So absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah, the breath, the breath focus is an interesting one for people because when they think blood pressure, nobody thinks breath. Like when you think blood pressure, thinking, oh boy, I'm stressed out, or I'm not eating healthier, I'm drinking alcohol, or I'm chewing tobacco, or smoking cigarettes. People don't think breath, like the way that I breathe. And it's crazy because as Americans now, we're all so go, go, go, go, go. And what we don't realize is we don't take the time to breathe. We're very shallow breath. I remember Nick, the founder of Healthy Is one time, was doing a presentation for a business, and I was there with him, and he had everybody grab a pencil or their pencil or their pen that they were writing with. He said, Grab your pencil like it's a cigarette, put it up to your lips, suck in for four, hold, and blow it out. And so everybody. He's like, he said something along the lines of like, is it the cigarette that makes you feel amazing? Or is it the fact that this is the first time that you've actually breathed all day? Like we run around in this stressed-out state in our lives, whether it's chasing kids, like working, doing all these things, when we actually take some time to breathe, it can help us to relax. So, step one, when it comes to BP, can you breathe through your nose? Step two, this one is a challenge that we've talked about often. We talk about it a lot within our practice when it comes to nutrition, but coming here for blood pressure today, the time-restricted feeding concept. So, can you get a 12-hour break from food specifically at night? The reason that I pull this card oftentimes for people is because it allows the body to rest and recover. When you think of your blood pressure being high, your body's in a stressed-out state. Your heart is pumping, you're pushing blood. There's a multitude of reasons behind that, but with this 12-hour break from food, what I'm trying to get your body to do is rest and recover. And oftentimes when I talk to somebody about time restricted feeding with blood pressure, not only are we shooting for that 12-hour break from their last bite or their last drink of the previous day to their first drink of the following day, but I'm also basing that around sleep. So, hey, our goal between now and next month, not only can you get a 12-hour break from food at night, but is there a way that you could stop eating two hours before bed? Trying to piggyback those two together because the more that you can sleep, the more that you can rest and recover, the higher the likelihood that your blood pressure is actually going to come down. So, with this time-restricted feeding concept, can you get a 12-hour break from food to allow your body to just focus on rest and recovery? And can you start that 12-hour break two hours before you go to bed so that you can optimize your sleep and your rest and recovery? Anything on TRF, Zampy? Nope. Feel good about that one? Sweet. Cool. And then the third thing that I wanted to bring up on here when it comes to blood pressure is actually a food that we want you to intake. So there's a ton of science coming out about dark leafy greens. And when you ingest dark leafy greens, after you chew them up and break them down, they actually turn into nitric oxide in the body. So things like spinach, kale, arugula, those things are extremely beneficial to consume if you're trying to decrease your blood pressure.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Arugula on a sandwich, bro. Unsung hero. So good.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

Really? Yeah. What do you put it on? What kind of sandwich?

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Like a chicken patty sandwich. Ooh, like a chicken melt, patty melt, whatever. That sounds pretty good. Arugula slaps.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Heck yeah. That sounds delicious. But dark leafy greens, due to the fact that the nitric oxide, when it gets broken down, it turns into nitric oxide, which is the same thing that happens when you breathe through your nose. So it helps to bring down resting heart rate, blood pressure, cortisol. So three main buckets there. Breathe through your nose, focus on a 12-hour break from food, and intake as many dark leafy greens as you can to help decrease your blood pressure if you're focused on it. Another thing, fun fact that I actually, this was a Max Lugavier thing that I read probably two years ago, but there was a study done and they looked at a comparison, and it wasn't a direct correlation between individuals that used mouthwash and high BPs. And what's interesting, what the study was showing, is that as you utilize mouthwash, if you use mouthwash on like a multi-times a day basis, which some people do, it actually kills the good bugs in your mouth. And in turn, it was associated with people having a higher blood pressure eating. So if your blood pressure is elevated and you're really concerned about it and you're doing mouthwash every day, that could be a fun one to play with too to see if it makes a difference.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Yeah. I think the last thing that I have to leave our peeps with is uh some people, leafy greens is just an absolute no to negative ghostwriter. My dad won't eat greens. He won't. He just won't. Beets. Beets are another alternative. Yeah. Get some pickled beets in you. Even if you have to choke a couple down a day, it accomplishes the same task as uh uh leafy greens. So get some beets in you.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

Yeah, beets are good. And the beetroot juice powder that we've talked about a lot with clients, too. Like if you want a supplement route to go for sure, beetroot juice powder has nitrates in it, which turn into nitric oxide as well. So beetroot juice powder can be a great route to go if you're not going to eat the dark leafy greens or the beets. Thank you all so much for tuning in today. If there's ever anything that you want to hear from us, let us know. Leave us comments, leave us ratings, reviews. Thank you so much for listening, and we will see you all next time. See ya.