Can regular exercise lower my blood pressure?

If you have high blood pressure and haven't been physically active for a while, you will need to gradually build up your stamina. But, rest assured, over time you should see a vast improvement in your energy and physical strength -- and if you partner your exercise program with heart-healthy nutrition, you should lose weight while becoming more fit. Remember: If the rise in your blood pressure is associated with weight you have put on, the more weight you lose now, the more your blood pressure will drop.

Just 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day can make your blood pressure and your weight drop. Raising your physical activity levels -- 30 to 60 minutes most days of the week -- could lower your blood pressure even in a few weeks. And if you have pre-hypertension (a BP of 120-139/80-89 mmHg), regular exercise may prevent it from turning into full-blown hypertension.

Most important: Get off the couch, and start walking -- for even 5 to 10 minutes a day to start. You might want to get a pedometer, a device that measures the number of steps you walk. Build up to a goal of at least 10,000 steps a day, which should take you 30 to 45 minutes.

People who exercise regularly are less likely to develop high blood pressure. Regular physical activity decreases blood pressure, and both aerobic and resistance-training exercise have the ability to lower blood pressure, effects that are largely independent of weight loss. Just walking three or four days per week for at least half an hour per day has been shown to significantly lower blood pressure in hypertensive patients.

A study of the Pritikin combined lifestyle-modification program (which is similar to the healthy end of the Spectrum) found that 83 percent of people with high blood pressure were able to safely discontinue taking their antihypertensive medications after only three weeks of changing their diet and exercise. Other combined nutrition and lifestyle interventions have documented similar reductions in blood pressure.

A single exercise session can lower your blood pressure by 5 to 7 mm/Hg, which may persist for as long as twenty-two hours. However, the blood pressure benefits of exercise are reduced after only one to two weeks of returning to the couch, so regular exercise is important to sustain the reductions in blood pressure.