If your doctor finds you have high blood pressure you will probably be put on blood pressure medicine and/or diuretics to bring the blood pressure down. These are important life-saving medications which we may need if the blood pressure is out of control, but we always want to make sure to treat the root cause(s) of the high blood pressure so that maybe we won’t need to resort to the use of these medications.
There are several underlying imbalances which can contribute to high blood pressure. Most people with this condition will usually have more than one of these problems which they need to address.
First, it’s important that you understand about the physical channels in the body — channels which carry blood, such as the arteries, and other channels which carry toxins, food, tears, sweat, lymphatic fluids and so on.
If the channels shrink down, get clogged or inflamed then the blood pressure will go up, much like a garden hose whose pressure will go up if you step on it.
So you need to avoid the foods that shrink the channels: the nightshade vegetables, such as eggplant, bell peppers, tomatoes and white potatoes. They contain nicotine which shrinks all the body’s physical channels including the blood vessels, causing the blood pressure to go up. And of course you should avoid smoking cigarettes because they also contain nicotine.
Avoid the channel-clogging foods for the same reason: chocolate, cacao, unfermented soy (tofu, soy milk, edamame), hard aged cheeses, nut butters (peanut butter, sunflower seed butter, almond butter, etc.), winter squashes, bananas, mushrooms, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, hemp seeds, and the heavy meats such as red meats, pork, sausage, bacon, pepperoni, beef,veal, ham, and deli meats.
And finally avoid the foods which burn the channels, such as onions, garlic and vinegar. If you desire a sour taste put fresh squeezed lime on the food as it turns alkaline quickly once ingested.
Next, you should understand thoroughly how a deficiency of magnesium could elevate your blood pressure and how supplementing with it helps the blood pressure go back down. We give it transdermally through the skin as it doesn’t always digest well and can sometimes cause diarrhea. We give it as abhyanga or massage oils to be used on the entire body, lotions and creams to be used on more specific parts of the body. Magnesium is always used in emergency rooms and hospitals to lower blood pressure.
Magnesium gets depleted with stress, if you drink fluoridated water or use dental products which contain fluoride, if you consume alcohol and just about every pharmaceutical depletes the body of magnesium. A high protein diet can also deplete magnesium as well as high doses of Vitamin D.
There’s two reasons why a magnesium deficiency can cause high blood pressure:
First is because there are 3 layers to the walls of your arteries, an outer layer, a middle layer and an inner layer. The middle layer is the largest and it basically is composed of muscle and elastin. The muscles pump the blood through and the elastin layer is just like a rubber band — it creates elasticity within the artery walls. This is important because the magnesium in this layer keeps the muscles relaxed which keeps the arteries dilated, keeping the blood pressure down.
And the magnesium in the elastin layer keeps it very pliable which helps the arteries to expand when the heart beats, which keeps the blood pressure down. When you feel the pulse of someone in their 20’s the arteries feel very pliable but the arteries feel very stiff and hard in an older person’s pulse. This is because if the magnesium goes low calcium can infiltrate and start to deposit in the inner walls of the arteries hardening them. If the arteries get hard, they won’t give when the heart beats and the pressure can go up. As the person takes magnesium over time the vessel walls will soften back up. This is because the magnesium can displace the calcium back out of the artery walls allowing them to become pliable again.
We all know that stress causes a lot of high blood pressure, but here is why: when we’re stressed our adrenal glands secrete cortisol which shrinks down the physical channels, causing the blood pressure to go up. This is why we use Ashwagandha, which prevents the release of too much cortisol when we’re stressed which will help keep the blood pressure down.
Cortisol also dumps magnesium out of the body causing the blood pressure to go up as the arteries lose their elasticity and harden.
The next factor which can raise your blood pressure are the highly processed table salts, composed primarily of sodium and chloride which can increase the blood pressure if used over a lifetime. My teacher Vaidya Mishra went out of his way to get us a white Himalayan Salt which he calls Soma Salt, which has all the minerals in it and won’t heat your liver the way the pink Himalayan salt can.
The Charak Samhita, the ancient central reference text of Ayurveda, lists 8 edible and beneficial kinds of salt coming from the Himalayas. It names the best among them, Soma Lavan, or Soma Salt.
Soma Salt is described in Chapter 27, verse 300 as: rochanam (tasty), deepanam (increasing the digestive fires), vrishyam (supporting shukra dhatu, the reproductive tissue), chakchushya (supporting the longevity of the eyes by cooling the liver), avidahi cha (not creating a digestive imbalance due to excessive heating quality, and not causing retention of toxins as other salts do), tridoshagnam (pacifying all 3 doshas and having a somewhat sweet taste), lavanottamam (the best of all salts).
Soma salt is a cooling rock salt as the name soma suggests. In nature soma represents the cooling nurturing elements. This is a unique quality for a salt since most salts have a hot (agni) quality. Only Soma salt has the cooling soma quality needed to balance it.
Soma salt is extracted from the mountains of Northwest India in the historic land of Sindh. In Vaidya Mishra’s family lineage of Shaka Vansya Ayurveda this salt is known as the “Queen of Salts” due to its high mineral content and its unparalleled somagenic qualities.
High Vata, or functioning in a state of fight-or-flight all the time can also shrink the channels and high Pitta, or the fire element in the body, over time can heat up the blood causing it to pound against the walls of the arteries. In fact, one of the most common causes of high blood pressure is due to skipping and delaying meals because the liver is a very hot organ containing 5 digestive fires and it needs a constant supply of food to burn up. If you become hungry and you don’t eat, the liver’s fires will escape from the liver and heat up the blood, causing the blood to pound against the walls of the arteries, thus raising blood pressure. Listen to the free classes on my website where I explain what these elements known as Vata, Pitta and Kapha are, how they govern the body’s processes, and how to keep them in balance.
If you are overweight you should try to learn better eating habits to keep your weight down as high body weight can cause high blood pressure. Many of my patients’ high blood pressure came down just by losing weight.
And finally, we do have a very specific herb to use for high blood pressure, but first, before I give it to our patients, I make sure all of these other issues are addressed or else it alone might not be enough to lower the pressure. I am not going to divulge the name of this herb here as it is a very powerful herb and you should be monitored by your Ayurvedic practitioner while you are on it.
I hope you found this information beneficial as you try to learn better ways to manage your high blood pressure.
Thank you,