Finally, Conquering the High Blood Pressure!

Background
After about 10 years of taking high blood pressure medicine, finally, I feel that I will be able to go medicine free. Let us say, I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I like to share this information with every one so that you can also try along similar lines (however please consult the doctor before you take anyone's advice). It is indeed a great personal achievement for me.

Ten years back, I used to feel dizzy and doctor warned me categorically that I had to take medicine to lower the blood pressure. He prescribed me Ramipril 5 mg (known as Altace in US and Cardace in India), but in time that did not effect me and it was increased to 10 mg (the maximum dosage). Even with this dose it was important to watch my nutrition, do exercise and sleep well. If I did not have good night sleep, my BP would shoot up in spite that I have take medicine.

Now with this regimen that is mentioned below, my blood pressure has come to normal. I have gradually reduced the dose and for past few days I am not taking the medicine. My last measured BP is 136/71

Regimen that worked!
If I were to highlight the factors that helped me reduce the BP, they are as follows:

• Exercise with perspiration - I jog 2-3 miles (without pause) at least 5 days a week which takes about 30-40 minutes. Then I do light weight (2.5Kg), till I feel tired so that my muscles are relaxed. I mentioned perspiration because if you live in cold countries, you may not see the benefit by running outdoors where you may not perspire.
• Nutritional food - No pizza or juice or restaurant foold. Mostly homemade food which may contain light oily food. It is a real tragedy of our times that we do not get time to cook food from raw ingredients and all the restaurants serve unhealthy food.
• Less food, especially for dinner- Literally my bench mark is: I am always slightly hungry. One should have a balance. If one is too hungry, your work will be impacted and you will tend to get frustrated and have a big meal later.
• Fasting - I fast two times a week. In the fast I eat only fruit and tea (that contains milk), but have normal dinner. I usually also jog during fasting day. Fasting also help in controlling craving for the food for the rest of the week.
• Proper sleep - At least six hours of continuous sleep. However, even when my sleep is less, it did not seem to impact much!

This has been the magic combination that has cracked the puzzle and brought my blood pressure to normal. It may sound excruciating regimen, but it is tolerable. The rewards are great.

At the hindsight, from evolution standpoint, it is closest to imitation of the natural habitat that our bodies are shaped for, through eons of Darwin's selection. Imagine as farmer thousands of years ago - they must have at least worked many hours of day covering at least few miles; had food with low taste, so they ate just what the body desired; When the season was bad, they had to go hungry; and since there was no light or mental work stress, they slept well. Also read my article on ideal nutrition that has reasoning along similar lines.

Doubts
There are always doubts if this is a permanent cure. After all, I had seen in the past that any regimen I adopted, I get the initial benefit. But with time the body gets used to it and I get the high blood pressure again. So one might think this is also a passing phase before my body gets used to this regime.

There are two reasons for doubt:

1. It has been only one month that my BP is in normal range. I should watch for about 8 months before I could be more confident.
2. For past 3 months I am not in any project so I do not have any work stress. Very soon, I will be in Australia for my next consulting engagement and I am keeping my finger crossed.

Well, let us see. I will post about my status six months from now.


How this Miracle Happened:
Thought some of you may like to know, how things changed...

My blood pressure was alright with medication for number of years. It was important that I ate nutritional food and did reasonable exercise. However, any time I slept less or had work stress or had nice dinner, my BP will shoot up for next few days. My body was so sensitive.

However, a month back in India, there was an Hindu festival called Shiva Ratri (Lord Shiva's night), where one takes fast for the whole day - (having tea and fruits if you have low will power). Once I had undertaken the fast as a teenager. I decided to do it again partly as as challenge with my past and partly for God. Wow! For next three day my blood pressure went below the normal range! It seemed as if I never had High Blood pressure. That's how I realized fasting is one of the key in my regimen.

Earlier, I always thought exercise and good nutrition are the main factors to reducing BP and I thought it could be gradually achieved (against doctor's belief that some of us are predisposed to High BP that cannot be cured.). I never expected that fasting would suddenly produce the affect I was looking for a long time. I had a feeling that this was the final piece of the puzzle that solved the problem.

I will tell you, India is really incredible place! The extremities of ideas and the tenacity of the environment that one is exposed by being here is truly amazing. I would have never figured this piece of puzzle by reading science, health news or being in any other country.

Next Steps
I am observing myself for next eight months to see if this regimen has really worked. I hope I could write a book as people could learn and feel motivated. However, given the time, currently it is not in my immediate plans. Nevertheless, I plan to write some articles in this blog for motivation and the details that I could not put here.

I would also like research institutions to do study along the similar regimen with controlled groups. I could contribute by reviewing such proposals. I am amenable to critical way of thinking as required for the scientific research (I have doctorate degree in Physics from Rutgers university)

Eye Exercise for Kids

While parents are very particular about nutrition needs of their kids, there is big oversight for eye exercise. Surprisingly not much importance is given to short-sightedness by doctors or media. After all, a poor eye-sight can be corrected by glasses or contacts. In this article, I focus on simple 10-minutes eye exercise for kids. Ofcourse every one can do this, but eye exercise is especially important for kids.
Some Statistics and Facts

• Fifty years ago myopia (or short sightedness) was not very prevalent. Today one in every four people have myopia. It is predicted that by 2020, one in three will be shortsighted. (See Myopia on the rise). This is tantamount to having epidemic!
• The percentate of children with myopia is higher in countries where the children are subjected to heavy school work loads, watch computer games, or TV. (I hope to improve the statistics when available)
• Any person with glass will tell you, that the short sightedness worsens progresively, till you reach the age of 20-25 years. This is when the body (including the eyes) stops growing.

The above facts indicates two things. One is, eye care should be taken since young age and secondly environment plays a big role in myopia. To counter the environmental effects, one can emphasize on good sitting posture, watch less computer games and TV (especially moving game where intense focus is needed), and some eye exercise. If you are socially vocal, try to introduce in your school curriculum.

Here are some yoga exercise for eyes that I learnt long ago in India. It is definitely soothing for tired eyes. Try it and only if you feel comfortable, ask your kids to do as an every morning or evening activity.

Eye Exercise Instructions

	Exercise: For half a minute, look into your forehead. Relax: When done, close your eyes for half a minute. Warm your eyes by firstly rubbing your palms and putting it over the closed eyes, gently massaging the eyes.
	Exercise: For half a minute, look into your nose. (People with mongoloid feature can look on their lips) Relax: see above
	Exercise: For half a minute, look into your left shoulder without turning your head. Relax: see above
	Exercise: For half a minute, look into your right shoulder without turning your head. Relax: see above
	Exercise: Start with looking to your nose, gradually move the eyes clockwise till you are back to your nose. Then retrace your eyes in counter-clockwise till you reach your nose again. Do this about 10 times. Relax: see above

Some commonsense rules should be followed such as not to do exercise if there is inflammation or injury to eye. Best consult the doctor, if in doubt.

How to judge food is good for you?

Searching for Right Food that is healthy
"Monkey see, monkey do", this is my simple philosophy that I have discovered over the years for judging food that are good for us. If you are in forties or higher, it is highly possible that you always looking for including healthy diet in you menu. But finding the right food for your body is not easy. Yet through science and honest reasoning, one can come with some conclusions about right food that may be surprising and probably true. At least such reasoning has worked for me and helped control my blood pressure and prevent serious diseases. I am reasonably sure, it will work for others. Just to let you know that I had dizziness and high blood pressure for almost seven years. I still take blood pressure medicine but seem to have discovered the art of selecting food and exercise that has helped me control the blood pressure and hopeful that I will eventually get rid of high blood pressure. I will focus only on judging the food and discuss about exercise later or motivational aspects of eating the recommended food later.

We live in an age where our food or nutrient intake is primarily influenced by advertisements (ironically this page also have a few!) that comes from companies that sell processed foods, fast food (Dunkin' Donuts, Mc Donald or Burger King), tasty but expensive foods (restaurants), or medicine (Pharmaceuticals). Some of the advertisements are good. But advertisements overwhelming are made for profiting from you rather than concern for your health. This is indicated by facts that 2 in 3 Americans are overweight and 1 in 5 Americans are obese - a number that has doubled in last 30 years. Obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes have reached epidemic proportions. Quite a sad statistics from a wonderful country. But China and India are also catching up very fast, mainly because they can afford to eat bad foods found in restaurants and fast food-chain.

One cannot blame the advertisements alone. Cultural foods also has big impact in ruining one's health. Perhaps the first mistake humankind made since pre-historic times was to have salt added to our diet; ever since then the diet has gone downhill! Some Japanese and Mediterranean food are close to ideal food as indicated by their longevity and good health.

Finding the baseline for good health?
So how do we judge which nutrition is good for us? I have gradually realized that resorting to simple scientific theory of evolution provides most of my answers. Many of us may not be pleased by the idea of evolution theory, but let us temporarily believe in it, for the sake of our health. (May be in some other article, I will try to convince that it is not really against religious principles!).

Based on evolution theory, our body makeup is similar to a monkey or a chimpanzee. Since the monkeys in the wild are not obese or have generally have tooth decay, we should be able to get good insight by looking at the lifestyle of monkeys, and see what wrong steps we have taken through the generations and possibly correct it.

Some of the observations are:

• Activity: Monkeys get plenty of exercise by foraging for food for most of the day, where by they move most parts of their body. On the contrary, our job in the urban and sub-urban area requires us to stand for long hours, or repetitively move only some parts of the body, or worse, sit for the whole day in a cubicle.
• Diet: Their diet consist of fruits, nuts, tender leaves, flowers, on rare occasions some meat and no sugar or salt. Our diet is just the opposite with fried foods, lots of meat, sugar laden drinks, enriched food - polished rice, pasta, white bread, fruit juice, and beverages like coffee and tea.
• Eating in Moderation: Monkeys will not stuff themselves as they have to work for getting extra leaves or fruits. Imagine how motivated you will be if you have to climb another tree to get same kind of fruit or leaves! On the contrary, we have the option to go to various restaurants - Italian, Chinese, Indian, or Japanese - with an easy car ride. Then stuff more with desserts.
• Fasting: On some dreary days monkey go hungry, yet they are fairly active. For us we normally eat three times a day with snacks in between.

Baseline For Healthy Food
So based from above facts we can make the following conclusion about base line food.

• Very less Salt: Just like animals we can get all the salt from fruit and vegetables. So we can give up or use very sparingly


• Very less sugar: Sugar is a processed food and like any process food it must be avoided. One of the obvious dangers that is the damage it does to the teeth. Animals do not brush there teeth and still they do not have tooth decay. Yet there are other dangers that cannot be seen but realised only when you go to doctor with problem when it too late. A google search on "sugar poison" will show you what I mean. The danger is felt when one gets diabetes. If diabetics can live without sugar for rest of their lives, so can other before we have diabetes.


• Very few processed foods: You will be surprised how many foods are processed. Some examples are sugar, pasta, polished rice, white bread, any thing made from white flour. Food made from white flour are densely packed starch without fiber to moderate the absorption into your blood stream. Scientifically speaking, food that are absorbed fast are high glycemic foods which should be avoided. As a result the blood sugar shoots into your system before your body can control it via insulin. The result is over the years, the body gets de-sensitized to the insulin and people get diabetes. Usually people get diabetes when they are in sixties, but nower days it is common in forties. In fact in USA and other countries the doctors are the considering the diabetes growing at an epidemic proportions. All because of processed foods! Animal's diet do not have high starch diet, usually their diet has good balance of fiber, complex carbohydrate that takes longer to digest.


• Use Caution in Eating Prepared foods: Whether you buy prepared food from market, or from fast food chain or restaurants. Use caution as they are make most of the stuff from white flour, sugar, salt and "bad" fats. The only food, in my opinion, that I found best to eat in all the restaurants or fast food is Subway's - whole bread veggie delite (without any sugary drink!). Can you believe it, only one item! Of course, salad without those creamy dressing is another. The food industry has lot more to do that fits the bill of ideal food. So I would recommend to eat home cooked food and completely avoid food from outside! Believe me, you will never find my advice in any place because it has potential to ruin economy of all the fast food and restaurants! But customer have to dictate and send the message to restaurants and fast-food chain to include many of the healthy items.


• Mimize drinking of Juice: At the first glance, it sounds very healthy as it is pure and natural. But in nature animals do not drink fruit juice. The point is, say, it is easy to gulp one or two glass of orange juice, but will you really eat if your have five-six oranges kept in front of you? Even if you eat, you will eat at much slower place than gulping the juice. Remember the animals do not use knife to cut the fruits too :), so the motivation is far less to eat the orange! Secondly, the juice contains sugar without the pulp that contains fibers slowing the digestion.
• Avoiding fats, especially bad fats: One can easily see monkey's food is all raw and have no fried foods. It may be impossible to have all raw food, but we should be close to the spirit of it. Did you know that vegetable foods have no cholesterol and have no bad fats. One should avoid eating meat altogether as it is the source of bad fats and cholesterol. Also avoid processed vegetable oil or partially hydrogenated fats. Recently, KFC food was accused of dripping with such kind of unhealthy fat.
• Health Pills: We need to be vary of all the non-prescription pills in the market. You never know what is in them. Though a multi-vitamin pill is may be very good for you. It is very easy to make bad decision when you are in desperate state. Though herbal pills claim that there are not side effects, a large dosage of any thing may be harmful to you. I had seen a lady to used to eat almost 8-10 pills of different herbal supplements!
• Eating Less and often: Animals do not get to eat the tasty fried foods, so overeating is never a problem! Once you realize this and reduce your food intake, you will be surprised that eating less can be so good for you. You might always feel hungry but you will learn to live with eating food in moderation, once the food is deprived of salt, sugar or fat.

Summary
I tried to give you some advice in making judgments in selecting good and bad food. These will definitely help you in fighting hypertension and diabetes. You will definitely have to change your lifestyle, I will say "resetting" your lifestyle that has been so corrupted by enticing advertisements. I do not claim to follow my own advice, but I know the baseline and have a goal in my mind. But this has greatly helped my health in a good way and I wanted to share with you.

I hope you read my other articles in this blog, which will contain good information that will help you change your life for the better.

Introducing Myself

To introduce myself, I am in mid-forties and look reasonably healthy (see my pic in the profile that shows me in front of Abraham Lincoln's house). But I have been suffering from high blood pressure for over 15 years and once diagnosed with borderline diabetes. The blood pressure at many times used to be quite high even when taking the medicine. However, over the years I have realized to control blood pressure to reasonable levels although I still take medicine. I have good hope that in few years, I might be free of medicine or say, atleast I can decrease the dosage of medicine than I take today.

In the following articles, with my most sincere intentions, I like to help people all over the world to over come their blood pressure, diabetes (in some cases), and obesity. I do not think you can find the advice anywhere because my advice relies on simple living and if people all over the world were to follow, will lead to closure of half of world's fast-food chains and restaurants.

Before someone accuse me of my hidden agenda, I like to say myself that me and my wife had developed few software related to monitoring blood pressure, sugar and money. They can be seen from www.vidyasoft.com. I personally think they are great software and provide a great value for money. Of course, we sell the software for personal profit. I also earn some money when you click from the Google advertisements that you see in these pages.

Having said about my hidden agenda, I like to state that my intentions are genuine. The blood pressure, obesity and diabetes are growing at the epidemic proportions, that can never be stopped by advices and advertisements that you see in TV whether they are from fast food-chain, restaurants or pharmaceutical companies.

I hope you will like my articles and your feedback will help me motivate to write more of these articles.