Hypertension is often known as a silent killer. Hypertension is the increase in blood pressure inside the arteries, caused due to high pressure created by the heart to pump the blood into the system. The higher your blood pressure, the higher your risk of stroke, heart attack, congestive heart failure, kidney disease, and even, new research has found dementia. Hypertension contributes to heart attacks and strokes by damaging the inner walls of the arteries and by speeding up the inflammatory process. Hypertension is the number one risk factor for strokes.

The main causes of hypertension are:
Genetic factors or hereditary.
Diet - Excessive energy intake leads to obesity and tends to increase blood pressure.
Psychological factors - The stress and strain also plays a major role for high blood pressure.
Other factors - Renal, hormonal or any other disease can also lead to hypertension.
Mechanical obstruction to blood flow - arteriosclerosis
Drugs - contraceptive pills, steroid
Due to pregnancy- in many cases the blood pressure increases due to pregnancy and leads to toxemia of pregnancy.
Hypertension cannot be cured, but there’s a very good chance that with lifestyle change the levels of high blood pressures lowers significantly.

Lifestyle Management includes meditation, exercise, diet and drugs. Small change in lifestyle, like avoiding extra commitment, reduction in working hours, adequate rest and sleep is important in control of hypertension.

Meditation
Relaxation techniques like yoga, transcendental meditation or any kinds of meditation are found to be very useful methods to control high blood pressure.

Exercise
Regular exercise will help to lower the blood pressure. Start with mild exercise like walking and slowly increase your intensity and duration. Rigorous exercise is a risk of having heart attack. Moderate exercise or walking or jogging helps to reduce the diastolic pressure by about 15 - 20 mm of Hg.

Dietetic management includes:

Calories
If the person is obese the calories has to be restricted. Other wise normal individuals need the daily-recommended calorie according to the age, sex and physical activity.

Protein
In severe hypertension the protein has to be restricted to 20 gm/day where as the mild and moderate hypertensive can have 1 gm/kg body weight. For example if the person is 60kg then he can have 60 gms of protein / day.

Fats
It is advisable to reduce the fat consumption since hypertension has greater risk of arteriosclerosis. It is better to avoid high intake of animal fat or hydrogenated oils, which contain saturated fatty acids. The cholesterol rich foods such as liver, meat, organ meat, egg yolk, lobster, crab and prawns should be minimised in the diet. The dietary fats should consist of vegetable oil like corn oil, olive oil and sunflower oil.

Minerals and Vitamins
Low fat, low sodium and high potassium diet will help to lower high blood pressure. Moderate sodium restriction 2- 3 gm per day decreases diastolic blood pressure 6- 10 mm of Hg and enhances the blood pressure lowering effect of diuretic therapy.
Potassium intake should be increased. Food sources of potassium should be increased to patients who are on diuretics. For example apricots, tomato, chickoo, watermelon, banana, leafy vegetables, bitter gourd, brinjal and potato should be included in the daily diet since they contain low sodium and high potassium. Hypertensive patients with kidney disease should avoid a high intake of potassium as it puts an excessive load on the kidney.

Another good source of potassium is celery and it also contains a compound (3 n- butyl phthalide) which acts as a sedative and can also lower blood pressure. Vitamins should be adequate to the recommended allowances that can be achieved by consuming fruits and vegetables.
Fluids
Fluid restriction is not necessary for hypertension unless the patient is having oedema and heart failure where the fluid restriction is regulated according to the urine out put.

Alcohol and Smoking
Alcohol and smoking have adverse effects on hypertension and must be avoided.

Tips to maintain healthy blood pressure:

• Maintain a healthy weight, if you are overweight, lose some. Being overweight increases your risk of high blood pressure by six to eight times.
• Be more physically active. Fit some light activity into your daily routine.
• Take a walk at lunch time or dinner. Use the stairs instead of the elevator.
• Ride a bike to the supermarket. Stop a block or two away and walk the rest of the distance.
• Work in the garden or backyard, or go out dancing or to an aerobics session daily.
• Choose foodstuffs lower in salt and sodium.
• Check food labels for information of sodium in the food. Look for products with "unsalted" or "sodium free" labels.
• Buy fresh poultry, fish and lean meat, and fresh, or canned with "no salt added", vegetables.
• Cut back on frozen dinners, pizza, canned soups, broths and salad dressings, which are high in sodium.
• If you drink alcohol, do it in moderation. If you have no more than 2 drinks a day, your risk of high blood pressure is low.
• Other things too may help prevent hypertension, like calcium, potassium, fish oils, magnesium and stress management.
• No extra salt other than prescribed should be used.
• Avoid baking powder and soda in all the preparations.
• Avoid salty items, chips, pickles, and pappad.

Some herbs from ayurvedic treasure for hypertension:

• Drink alfa alfa juice or include the sprouts of alfa alfa in your diet inform of salad.
• Celery has a magical effect in lower in blood pressure, one can include it in diet in form soup
• Garlic and Indian gooseberry are other effective remedies to lower blood pressure.