Tallywell and Hypertension: The Ultimate Guide to Blood Pressure Control

Today, more than 120 million people have hypertension or high blood pressure. High blood pressure is a cause for concern because it can lead to many other health conditions, such as heart attack or stroke. 

If you’re someone who is struggling with their blood pressure or looking for preventative measures, it’s important to understand what exactly causes hypertension and how to prevent or treat it. In this article, you’ll learn just that, as well as discover a helpful tool to help make health-promoting choices. 

What Causes Hypertension?

Normal blood pressure is 120/80. Of course, this number can vary depending on a person’s demographic, but usually, anywhere around this number indicates healthy blood pressure. 

Stage 1 of hypertension starts at 130/80, and stage 2 starts at 140/90 and above. There are many factors that contribute to hypertension, all ranging from underlying medical conditions to medications, diet, exercise, and sleep. Most people understand the importance of a well-balanced diet, so today, our focus is on exercise and sleep. 

How often do you participate in physical activity? Being active is essential for health, especially as you age. Physical activity keeps the body strong and strengthens the heart. When your heart is strong and functioning properly, it’s able to pump more blood easily without exerting as much effort as someone who doesn’t exercise. 

What’s the best form of exercise for hypertension? If you’re struggling with high blood pressure, you want to start your fitness journey off slowly. 

Cardio is the best form of exercise to help lower blood pressure, as it raises your heart rate and strengthens the heart. Start with going on 20-30 minute walks after work and work your way up to an hour. If you’re in decent shape already, start jogging or bicycling, which are both great forms of cardio workouts. 

Sleep is another factor that can greatly affect your blood pressure. When you fall asleep at night, certain aspects of your body become subdued, especially your blood pressure. 

Your body no longer needs to function at the optimum levels it does while you’re away, so it works to control stress hormones and stabilize the metabolism in order to regulate energy levels. The problem is many people struggle to fall asleep at night due to the amounts of coffee and other stimulants that they consume during the day. 

Poor stress management is also another contributing factor to poor sleep conditions. Not getting enough sleep or not being able to sleep throughout the night prevents your body from lowering its blood pressure. 

If you already struggle with hypertension, you’re never truly giving your body the break it needs to lower the pressure and rest at a healthy level. As this continues, the body becomes more stressed, and the blood pressure continues to rise until you’re able to balance your sleep schedule. 

So, how do you go about creating a consistent physical activity and sleep schedule and hold yourself accountable? The tallywell app is here to help. 

Tallywell For Physical Activity and Sleep Monitoring

How often do you wear your Apple Watch? Did you know you can wear it at night while you sleep? 

Your Apple Watch is constantly downloading your health data based on your heart rate, steps, and other health metrics. This makes it easy for you to monitor your daily activity and sleep without having to manually track the data yourself. 

Even better, when you integrate the tallywell app alongside your Apple Watch, you can see a visual representation of how well you’ve performed throughout the week. Tallywell creates a personalized health score for every user, using Apple’s health metrics to predict how well you’re performing. 

The score is based on how many calories you’ve burned, steps taken, heart rate, and sleep analytics within your demographic. The reason this app is useful for hypertension is that it allows you to see daily or weekly whether you’ve had enough exercise, had enough sleep, and kept your heart rate within healthy levels. 

Tallywell keeps you accountable and gives you helpful tips and a game plan of how you can get back on track as soon as your health score drops or goes out of range. Having this tool is a great way to stay motivated, especially in the beginning stages of your plan to combat hypertension. 

Whether you’re someone who lives a sedentary lifestyle or someone looking to increase their current fitness and sleep schedule, tallywell helps make the process seamless.

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