I don’t know if you are ware but May is Stroke Awareness Month. You may well not have had a stroke. BUT you probably know someone who has!
(be sure to check out the video of two clients talking about how their work has resulted in significant reduction in blood pressure at the end…it’s life changing for them).
So, Too much stress is a huge , huge area of concern when it comes to over all health and particularly the vascular system. This is an area I covered in more depth in my Amazon best seller , The Fad Free Fitness Formula.
Today I want to concentrate on the stress caused to the vascular system.
Now this is not the encyclopedia, nor is it intended to be on vascular health, however, it will help you.
First the bad news, one in two men and women die from heart disease.
Every year, nearly 300,000 people die in Great Britain prematurely from stroke or heart disease.
Not nice for the families left behind.
You see, a layer of muscle covers our blood vessels. When we become too stressed this contracts too much, too often. Smoking makes this worse as does too much salt and not enough magnesium or potassium.
Not enough magnesium and potassium becomes a problem because these two minerals are required for relaxation and contraction of our muscles.
On from this a lack of hydration is a huge problem, placing the heart under huge stress. When the blood becomes more viscous (thickened) it causes an increase in blood pressure. The blood contains little platelets, these are meant to stick together when we cut ourselves. However, if the blood clots too much you are running the risk of it being life threatening, particularly if you already have narrow arteries due to high levels of stress or poor diet.
Oh yes this leads me to my third change in the artery, which can lead to high blood pressure. It’s known as atherosclerosis. This essentially means, “narrowing of the blood vessels”. Often this occurs as a result of damage and thickening of the blood vessel wall.
What is common is that these people will present with increased levels of cholesterol (the bad type, not the good type) that are stuck to the vessel wall. This kind of damage can also cause our blood vessels to become less elastic and harden.
Obviously knowing how to avoid the above is great and recognising the initial signs of heart disease can be crucial.
This is all well and good but you have also got to take the appropriate action. Its no good finding you have high blood pressure and continuing drinking alcohol, eating pastries and not exercising and relying on medication to sort it out!
Here are a few things that we have implemented with our clients and found them very beneficial and we have the results to prove it.
1. Garlic. We used one raw clove per day at breakfast time. Garlic contains a compound known as “ajoene”, this has been linked with anti clotting properties. This is why we included it in our 9 Day Clean Up Project. This worked really well and is a step by step guide to really cleaning up your body with some solid and scientifically proven principles, not faddy methods!
2. We also encouraged our clients to use a certain training programme that we put together that encouraged vasodilation (the opening of the arteries). This encouraged blood from one area to another, with limit time spent in any one position. The bad the net effect of increasing peripheral blood flow. Opening up all the capillaries at the extremities.
3. We also encouraged our clients to eat berries as they contain a substance known nitric oxide, which is a natural vasodilator. We put together smoothies that contained blueberries and they went down a treat.
So there we have it, not war and peace by all means but if you want to know more then please head http://www.mattluxtonhealthandfitness.com/about where you will find my blog and you can get in contact with me if you would like to know more.
Have a great day,
Matt
p.s. TWO CLIENTS SPEAK ABOUT THIS TOPIC RIGHT HERE- here’s a video of the clients (two of which have benefited directly in terms of their blood pressure and they mention itHERE )
