Exercise to Control or Prevent High Blood Pressure

I'm a fairly active guy. I train for and fight in amateur mixed martial arts competitions, I teach martial arts, I have three children and I'm only 37. Two months before my last fight in October '06, I was lifting weights, doing cardio-aerobic training, and grappling/fighting/sparring twice a day, four days per week for about an hour for session.

You can imagine my surprise, when I woke up one morning in November '06 with the left side of my face tingling. I went to work that Monday and talked to one of the physician's assistants I work with, and he was concerned I'd suffered a neck injury and the injury was pinching one of my cervical nerves.

My friend convinced me to go to my doctor, I ended up seeing on of my doctor's PAs who told me she believed I was suffering from hypertension. At that interview my blood pressure was one sixty over something like one hundred. She put me on a low dose of an accepted blood pressure medicine and I scheduled a follow up in a week.

In one week, I met with my doctor who ordered a boat load of laboratory tests for me. He had everything tested: my liver function, my kidney function, my thyroid function, my triglycerides, and an x-ray of my spine, I mean everything.

All my lab tests came back showing I'm a very healthy guy except for the beginnings of arthritis in my spine. So where did the high blood pressure come from - at this point it had come down only a little. Out of danger but not low enough.

My mother and grandmother have high blood pressure. I work as a mental health clinician in a maximum security prison, and I was taking ibuprofen like it was candy due to pain from injuries suffered during fighting and training. On top of that, I was taking antihistamines with pseudo-ephedrine like they were candy so I could keep training even though I had a serious sinus infection. The conclusion I came to is that my high blood pressure was lifestyle related spiced with some genetic factors.

Today, my blood pressure is a steady 120/80. I changed a number of things in my life. I quit eating obvious salt - it's hidden in everything. I vowed to be less stressed at work and take work just a little less serious, and I changed my exercise.