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Dropping
Blood Pressure to a Health Level - The Best Music for Your Heart
Swedish
pop group Abba is still amazingly popular after nearly 50 years, thanks in part
to the success of 2008’s movie Mamma Mia!
But
do the Swedish supergroup’s songs have the best beat for a healthy heart?
The
answer will surprise you.
A
study from Germany has the answer. It was published in the journal Deutsches Arzteblatt International. Now,
admittedly it was only a small study, but it’s worth taking seriously because
it stands on the shoulders of giants. It’s just the latest in a
long line of research that proves how good music is for your physical health.
For
this study, the researchers split 120 people into two groups (all of them with good hearts and no blood pressure problems, half under 50
and half over 50 years of age). One group listened to music for 25 minutes per
session and half got to lie down in silence.
The
music group was split into three smaller groups. One got to enjoy Mozart’s
Symphony No 40 in g minor, one got to wave an imaginary bat on to Johann
Strauss, and one got to mime along (presumably) to a selection of Abba hits.
The
results were interesting:
Mozart
lowered systolic blood pressure by 4.7
mmHg, Strauss by 3.7 mmHg, and Abba by virtually nothing. (Sorry Abba fans.)
Mozart
lowered diastolic blood pressure by 2.1 mmHg,
Strauss by 2.9 mmHg, and Abba had little effect again. (Mamma Mia! Another
surprise.)
The
group that rested in silence got some benefit, but not as much as the music
group.
The
Mozart and Strauss listeners had lower heart rates than the others, and they
dropped them by 5.6 beats per minute (BPM) (Mozart), and 4.7 BPM (Strauss).
Mozart
and Strauss were also good at lowering levels of the stress hormone cortisol
(especially in men). As cortisol raises blood pressure, this is also good
news.
It’s
interesting to note that what the people in the study normally chose to listen
to didn’t affect their results. That’s important because it means that even if
you don’t enjoy classical music it can still help your heart.
So
why was the classical music better for blood pressure?
As
different as you might think classical and pop songs are, the scientists noted
that all three still had aspects to them that were repetitive and catchy, so
they think that lyrics might make all the difference.
Previous
research has shown that having any lyrics in a song gives our brains more work
to do, so even nice, happy lyrics take some cognitive effort to process. For
maximum peace of mind (and lower blood pressure) you’re better off
listening to happy music with no words at all.
So,
if you suffer from high blood pressure, maybe you
should buy Abba’s entire back catalogue for karaoke and just listen to the
instrumental tracks without singing along?
Dropping
Blood Pressure to a Health Level - This Healthy Vegetable Causes High Blood Pressure
Most
advice about avoiding high blood pressure involves
eating more fruits and vegetables, but now there’s some confusion about one
vegetable that a lot of people eat.
A new study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical
School points the finger at this vegetable and accuses it of potentially doing
more harm than good.
And to muddy the waters even more, they also found that one of the
least healthy ways of preparing this vegetable DIDN’T seem to raise blood
pressure.
The authors already knew that people who took potassium
supplements had lower blood pressure than their peers did. They also knew that
high glycemic carbohydrates (like potatoes) can increase blood pressure.
As potatoes are full of potassium (which can lower blood pressure)
and high glycemic carbohydrates (which can raise blood pressure), they were
curious about which one would win this tug of war.
So, they looked back over 3 previous studies that tracked 187,453
people. They knew their potato intakes, and which of them had hypertension.
They found that people who ate less than one portion of potatoes
per month had the lowest risk, while those who ate four or more portions per
week had the highest risk.
It didn’t matter if they smoked or not, were obese or not, or did
exercise or not. The results were still the same. And what they ate and drank
didn’t seem to make any difference either. They could have been drinkers or
abstainers, vegetarians or meat eaters. In all cases, more potatoes meant
higher blood pressure.
But here’s a couple of odd things…
1. Four or more weekly servings of baked, boiled, or mashed potatoes
increased the blood pressure risk for women, but not for men.
2. French fries increased everyone’s risk, but potato chips didn’t.
Which seems weird considering that they’re virtually the same thing. Both are
deep-fried and both are salty.
It would be nice to think that we can all eat potato chips every
day without suffering any health problems, but let’s hold back until the
scientists can get to the bottom of what’s going on with this strange result.
There’s obviously more work to be done in figuring out exactly
what’s going on, because something clearly is.
Until that happens, try and stay at three or fewer portions of
potatoes per week (including potato chips) just to be on the safe side.
Dropping
Blood Pressure to a Health Level - Go Green and Avoid High Blood Pressure
Do you get bored by the usual blood pressure advice?
It’s often about doing more exercise and watching what you eat,
and after a while it can get pretty monotonous.
Thankfully there’s a new Australian study that doesn’t involve
either of those things. It just suggests that you should try doing something
which is fun, free and easy (depending on where you live).
In June 2016, Australian researchers surveyed 1,538 Brisbane
residents to find out whether the amount of time which humans spend in green
spaces could be good for their overall health.
They found that people who spent at least half an hour in an urban
forest or park once a week were less likely to suffer from high blood pressure
than people who didn’t. They also noticed that the more time they spent
outdoors, the greater the health benefits.
For every hundred park visitors there were nine fewer cases of
high blood pressure compared to their peers who stayed away.
These benefits were the same for everyone, regardless of their
body mass index, age, gender, income, and education.
The people who spent the longest time in green spaces had the
lowest blood pressure risks, and it didn’t even matter whether they lived near
simple urban parks or dense forests, they still got the benefits. It seems that
as far as your heart is concerned, even a little bit of green is good for you.
A walk in your local park is just as healthy as a hike in a
rainforest.
And there were other benefits too. Park-goers had fewer instances
of depression, more community spirit and more positive behaviors in general. It
looks like they were right when they called it “the great outdoors”.
But, a word of warning. You won’t get all of the good effects if
you walk about wearing earphones and staring at your phone with your head down.
You have to experience green spaces with all your senses to get the most out of
them. Otherwise, you might as well stay at home.
For
more ideas about dropping blood pressure to a healthy level, watch this video -
Lower Your Blood Pressure Instantly in Minutes by more than 20 points - Healthy Me
This post is from the High Blood Pressure Exercise
Program. It was made by Christian Goodman Blue Heron health news
that has been recognized as one of the top quality national health information
websites.
This program will
provide you the natural high blood pressure treatments, natural recipes to cook
healthy meals and useful strategies to build a healthy diet with the aim to
help you to maintain, stabilize and get your blood pressure down in minutes
permanently and naturally.
To find out more
about this program, click on Dropping Blood Pressure to a Healthy Level as soon as today, Naturally
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