The #1 Habit to Break If You Have High Blood Pressure

Oct 17, 2024

If you think it’s ditching the salt shaker, get ready for a surprise.

Award-winning writer and editor, Shaun Dreisbach was executive editor of EatingWell until its last issue in 2022. In addition to overseeing the editorial content of the magazine, she also handled features on nutrition and health, sustainability, the environment, industry trends and food policy. Shaun has more than 20 years of experience working at and contributing to leading print and digital publications including Glamour, Self, Parents, Real Simple, Working Mother, Dr. Oz The Good Life, Teen Vogue, American Baby, FamilyFun and USA Weekend. She has also authored several nutrition, cooking and weight-loss books for bestselling authors and celebrity nutritionists.

Karen Ansel, M.S., RDN, is a nutritionist, journalist and author. In her 20-plus years of experience, she has written hundreds of health-focused articles about food, nutrition, fitness and wellness. Her work has appeared in EatingWell, Women's Health, Weight Watchers, Men's Health, Shape, Woman's Day, Prevention, Fitbit and other publications and websites.

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If you’re like a lot of people with high blood pressure who ask Dr. Google what to do, you’ll come up with around 1,770,000,000 results in a few seconds. That’s a lot for anyone to sift through, let alone get meaningful answers. Of course, there are plenty of steps you can take to lower your blood pressure. But there’s a sneaky habit that might be driving your numbers up without you even knowing it. So we’re here to pinpoint the one clear thing you can do to bring your numbers down. Keep reading.

Let’s start with what blood pressure is and what it means. Blood pressure has to do with the blood flowing through your arteries. Sounds simple enough, right? The issue becomes when that blood pushes through at an exceptionally high rate—placing stress on your arterial walls. Over time, your arteries can become damaged, and that’s what ups your risk for heart attack and stroke.

Blood pressure is measured two ways. The first is your systolic pressure, which is the force of blood being pumped out of your heart and into your arteries. The second is diastolic pressure, which measures the force your blood puts on your artery walls while your heart rests between beats. 1

These numbers are expressed in millimeters of mercury (or mm HG). But your doctor might just say something like “150 over 90.”) 1 What does that mean? A healthy blood pressure is under 120 systolic and less than 80 diastolic. Readings above 130 systolic and 80 diastolic are considered to be elevated. And anything greater than 130 or 80 diastolic qualifies as high blood pressure (a.k.a. hypertension).

Let’s not bury the lead here: The number one habit to break if you have high blood pressure is to avoid foods high in added sodium and saturated fat, like restaurant foods and certain ultra-processed foods. Restaurant foods are pretty straightforward, but processed foods fall on a spectrum. Technically speaking, if human hands are involved, that counts as processing. So even foods with no added ingredients, like a pre-washed bag of spinach or a package of skinless chicken breast, are processed. However, there’s a big difference between that minimal amount of processing and ultra-processing. Ultra-processed foods—think chips, crackers, candy, packaged baked goods and soda—are often high in sodium, added sugars, saturated fat and preservatives that help extend their shelf life. “Not all processing is bad,” says David L. Katz, M.D., M.P.H., FACPM, FACP, FACLM, a specialist in internal medicine and preventive medicine with expertise in nutrition.

“Ultra-processed foods contain ingredients that home cooks would never, or hardly ever, use—including flavorizers, colorizers, texturizers and emulsifiers,” says Katz. “This isn’t about spinach leaves that were rinsed and bagged, or lentils that were dried and bagged, or oats that were pressed, rolled and packaged.”

And it’s not that the occasional salt-and-vinegar chips or frozen pizza are the worst things in the world. The issue is the quantity of them that we get in our diets. Upwards of 58% of the total daily calories Americans eat come from ultra-processed foods. And the current research—though almost entirely observational—shows a link between ultra-processed foods and high blood pressure.

Why can ultra-processed foods spell trouble for blood pressure? For starters, they’re typically high in added sodium. “Sodium is a major preventable driver of blood pressure variation,” says Katz. ” In addition to the sodium, he says, leaning on ultra-processed convenience foods also tends to deliver more added sugar and saturated fats that may increase heart health risk and crowd out whole foods in your diet—both of which can drive blood pressure up.

Here are some tweaks that can help bring your blood pressure down:

Curbing your intake of foods high in added sodium and saturated fat—like restaurant foods and certain ultra-processed foods—is a top strategy to help reduce high blood pressure. And a bonus is that it could also reduce your risk for other conditions, like high cholesterol, diabetes, obesity and more. Alongside regular physical activity and stress management, it can help you meet your health goals in a way that works for the long haul.

American Heart Association. How is High Blood Pressure Diagnosed?

Barbosa SS, Sousa LCM, de Oliveira Silva DF, et al. A systematic review on processed/ultra-processed foods and arterial hypertension in adults and older people. Nutrients. 2022;14(6):1215. doi:10.3390/nu14061215

Ruiz AMP, Lima MG, Medina LPB, Pinto RL, Barros MBA, Filho AAB. Can meals outside homes impact sodium intake?. Curr Dev Nutr. 2020;4(6):nzaa091. doi:10.1093/cdn/nzaa091

Shariful Islam, M, Fardousi, A, Sizear, MI, et al. Effect of leisure-time physical activity on blood pressure in people with hypertension: A systematic review and meta-analysis.” Sci Rep. 2023;13(1):10639. doi:10.1038/s41598-023-37149-2

Veldheer S, Tuan WJ, Al-Shaar L, et al. Gardening is associated with better cardiovascular health status among older adults in the United States: Analysis of the 2019 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2023;123(5):761-769.e3. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2022.10.018

Lu X, Juon HS, He X, Dallal CM, Wang MQ, Lee S. The association between perceived stress and hypertension among Asian Americans: Does social support and social network make a difference?. J Community Health. 2019;44(3):451-462. doi:10.1007/s10900-018-00612-7