If you have high blood pressure, you will have to take action to treat it. If ignored, hypertension can lead to very serious health problems including stroke, heart disease and kidney failure. So what high blood pressure treatments are the most effective? Find out what works best to keep blood pressure under control.

Healthy lifestyle is the best way to lower your blood pressure

No drug can ever help you to win a battle against hypertension for good. The best they can do is to give a temporarily relief. However, by changing your lifestyle habits you can keep the problem under control.

There are 3 major aspects of your life that affect your blood pressure:

- Exercise

- Diet

- Stress management

Making your heart beating slightly faster than normal from time to time is very important. This doesn't mean you will have to go the gym every day. Many everyday things count as exercise - house chores, gardening, walking your dog or playing active games with your children are good examples. Walking is the best exercise, even 15 minutes a day will do wonder. Most important you should do some exercise every day.

Another essential thing you will have to evaluate is your diet. Do you like souces, pickles and pre-cooked meals? Than you will have to cut it down, because all of the above are extremely high in sodium and sodium leads to hypertension. Add more veggies and fruits to your diet, remove your salt shaker from the table and you will feel much better as your blood pressure lowers.

Every time you stress out, your pressure jumps up. And if stress is a permanent part of your life it can constantly keep your readings high. Don't ignore stress; there are many effective ways to deal with it. For example, you can enroll in a stress relief class or take a yoga or Tai Chi class, listen to relaxation music. Try to find time to do things that you enjoy.

Hypertension medication

When it comes to high blood pressure drugs, you should never get one without consulting a doctor. If a particular medicine works well for your friend it doesn't mean it will suit you. Most hypertension drugs are prescription drugs, so the only way to get them is to visit your physician first and ask for prescription.

Medication used to control blood pressure includes:

- ACE inhibitors

- Calcium channel blockers

- Beta-blockers

- Angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs)

- Alpha-blockers

- Diuretics

In the past a lot of hypertension medications were unsafe and had side effects. Luckily they improved in recent years, so modern drugs that help to lower your blood pressure are more effective and safe.

Alternative high blood pressure treatments

If you don't trust conventional drugs and prefer alternative medicine, there are several treatments that can help you.

Natural herbs is also a very popular treatment. Most effective are Hawthorn and Ginkgo Biloba. Several studies have shown that garlic also helps with hypertension control. Garlic thins the blood (reduces its ability to clot). Garlic supplements work just as well as fresh garlic.

Among the alternative therapies, most common are acupuncture and magnetic therapy.

Acupuncture relaxes your body and releases some of the strain on the heart. There is no hard scientific proof that acupunctures works, but many people who tried it, swear that it helped to decrease their blood pressure.

Treatment with magnets can also help. Copper and iron bracelets reduce the effects of blood pressure, but scientists don't know how and why. However, this treatment is painless and safe, so it is worth the try.

There are many ways to treat high blood pressure. You should never ignore it, because this condition doesn't just go away unless you do something to control it.