high blood pressure

[atxryan]

hello, it seems that practicing chen style taijiquan actually raises my blood pressure (i have a very little bit of high blood pressure without practicing, too). it won't be another week until i see my teacher again, so do y'all have any ideas of what i might be able to do to change this?
thank you
ryan

[DMK]

Hello Friend,
Any form of exercise can raise your blood pressure, even taiji as it increase your cardiac output. If you have high blood pressure then when doing taiji it will also naturally increase.
First we need to determine you have been diagonsis with hypertension?Monitor your blood pressure and know your numbers .
Second if doing modern taiji practice it may not be enough to lower your blood pressure. Health people with high blood pressure meaning know underlining cause will need more yang practice(physical practice) . Yang practice is doing the chen style 83 or yang 85 three times back to back , so the heart does increase and respiratory does as well . If you are not sweating in taiji then you may not be getting health benefits. Taiji is a martial arts and to get the best results , I would say practice like a martial artist.
Lastly watch your DIET SODIUM and yes SUGAR TOO. Your diet should be plent of fruits and veggies ,nothing out of a can or a box preferrably. This will help elimante excessive sodium and sugar that is hidden in food. Sugar may surprise you with hypertension but it adds on extra pounds that you dont need... ALWAYS check with you doctor and follow his recommendation .
Practice old school taiji, smooth ,low and often .Thats for all schools of taiji regardless of lineages. Good luck and I hope I helped

[TenTigers]

last yeAr, I noticed my ankles were swollen. I went to the doctor and my bp was through the roof. It seems that during Lion Dance practice, after class, I would order food from the Chinese take-out-laden with salt, and msg-which is salt. Then at every show, the owners would buy us a meal-more salt. So, for the month leading up to and all through three weeks of Chinese New Year, I was taking in tons of salt, and not nearly enough water.
The doctor said if my bp didn't go back to normal in two weeks, he was going to put me on meds. Once you go on bp meds, you are basically on them for life.

I completely dropped my salt intake, salt free everything-salt free mayonnaise, salt-free pasta sauce, I would rinse cold cuts in water. I made my own salad dressings and even tried to make my own mayonaisse-ew. I also drank ten bottles of water a day, and ate garlic-lots of garlic.
In two weeks, my blood pressure was normal, and has stayed normal ever since.

[atxryan]

word up, thanks for the input. i had been diagnosed with borderline high blood pressure a few years ago. i drink a lot of water and will keep in mind what y'all said about diet, especially sugar and water. i do sweat during taijiquan practice, but i think my upper body may have not been relaxed enough or something so fire was staying up there. i only know 12 movements of chen old frame route one! i do them multiple times, and beforehand i do standing meditation and silk reeling also. my practice comes to like 45 minutes a day. i get hot, my hard sometimes gets upset with me (pain). tonight i'm going to try to concentrate on relaxation, posture, and natural breathing (because before i was doing reverse breathing in a manner that may have been incorrect). perhaps i'll start practicing twice a day, which would mean not practicing qigong in the morning, but i'm willing to try. i don't really have a doctor, btw, but my instructor is a doctor so i'll ask her next week before class.
thanks
ryan

[DMK]

I didnt understand your sentence that said....''i got hot '',and something with pain.
Here again check with your doctor and know your numbers Very Important.
Also make sure you are following taiji principles meaning , make sure you are not breathing through your mouth. I see you have just started chen style. Do you know other forms longer then the 12 postures?

[atxryan]

my apologies for the typo, i meant to say "i got hot, my heart sometimes gets upset with me (pain)," i didn't read through my post before posting.
last night i focused on relaxation, posture, and natural breathing like i said i would and my experience was much better. i don't know other forms longer than the 12 postures (i'm learning the 13th next week), but i'm trying not to over-do it too much right now.
thanks
ryan

[RickMatz]

Since I began studying Wu style Taijiquan a year ago, my blood pressure has gone down. Also, not really changing anything else (diet, etc), while my total cholesterol is the same, my LDLs and triglycerides have gone down, and my HDLs have gone up.

[GLW]

Chen style may not be the best choice for someone who has high blood pressure to start with.

This is NOT to say that you could not move to it later. I am just stating that Chen has more vigor and can be more taxing to the body, breathing, and the circulatory system than other styles.

Also, since what you want to do is learn how to keep the circulatory and health benefits while learning how to not let it all adversely affect your blood pressure, an aim of getting the full package (ie. health and martial aspect) may have to wait a bit.

What I am suggesting is to use another routine as a sort of "throw away" to learn and develop the blood pressure control aspects.... Then, when that is all stable, move back to the Chen style.

Of course, it would not hurt if what you were doing also developed some level of overall basics as well.

So, for the blood pressure problem, what you would want is a shorter routine that allows you to complete it and monitor your bp in shorter segments. Also, you want one that initially does not tax the cardio heavily unless YOU want it to.

So, personally, if I had a student with a known not yet under control problem with blood pressure, I would start them with basic techniques, breathing, and 24 Posture Taijiquan. During this, I would have them monitor their bp at intervals in practice.

Once we had determined that there were either things that raised the bp, lowered it, or that there was no impact, I would build on that knowledge. For example, if there were techniques that lowered it, I would have them do more of that. If there were ones that raised it, I would have them work those with scrutiny and see if we could determine what it was about those things that had that affect.

The goal would be to get to either lowering it or no impact. As that was reached, I would have them do more practice and then start them adding in the Chen style basics and methods.

I realize this is not a quick process...but having had a classmate who had high bp...and who did not pay attention to it. Coronary while stepping out of the shower...dead before he hit the ground. I had been trying to get him to do the monitoring and adjustment I mentioned for a couple of years before the fatal problem....he couldn't take things at that pace...and is now taking things at no pace.

[Itfulme25]

My friend is a high blood pressure patient. So i think this forum is very important for my friend. Now most of the people don't have proper idea about how to control high blood pressure. I think everybody need to use blood pressure calculator for check blood pressure level. After long time today i found this forum. I am really surprised for this forum info. I will visit again for get more information. I hope you will share lots of valuable information about how to control high blood pressure. Thank you so much.

Regards
Itfulme25

[YouKnowWho]

If you just

- close your eyes,
- raise your head (I don't know why this can make any difference, but it works for me),
- breath slowly, and
- remain calm,

you may drop your blood pressure that way. I have had the BP machine on my arm for 2 hours. I can see that the calmer I'm, the lower my BP will be.