Good Health!

Had a follow-up visit from my little scare two weeks ago. My BP is still high :-( But my cholesterol is good, so that is a relief. The doctor said, blame my parents for my high blood pressure and believe me, I do! Actually, it is borderline high. Because I just can't bear to think about myself on medication, I was looking online for anything I could find. One thing I found was the DASH diet. It is basically a diet of mostly vegetables, fruits and whole grains. Not too much different from the way I try to eat, but it has some structure and I am going to try to see how well I can follow it. Although I don't eat too much processed food and I do eat quite a few different veggies, I find it hard to get 4-5 servings of veggies. I probably get 2 servings from the salad I have each night and another one from whatever vegetable we have. But to get 4 or 5 I have to make a point to have veggies at lunch or breakfast. Bottom line, I don't think I will get much BP reduction from this small change.

I am going to get back to my (almost) daily walking. I am getting ready for the Big Sur 21 miler once again. El Esposo and I have also talked about doing the Ohlone Wilderness 50K. But if we are going to do that we better start training--and I mean seriously! Here is a website with great pictures of the event. But I am not going to get ready for this by sitting on the couch reading blogs!

The other thing I am going to do is practice slow breathing. It has data to support the fact that it has lowered diastolic blood pressure (the lower number and the one of mine that is too high). Here is what you do. For 10-15 minutes each day you breath at a rate of 10 or fewer breaths per minute. I was practicing today with a stopwatch and a long slow breath for me is 12 seconds. That is only 5 breaths per minute. The problem is to not get distracted while doing this for 10-15 minutes. I couldn't even do it for 2 minutes without my mind wandering to something else and losing track of my breathing pattern. Too much multitasking has left me with little ability to focus. So I am going to practice this. Breath in to your lower chest and stomach, then your upper chest. Then breathe out in reverse--first your upper chest, then the lower chest and abdomen. It should take a count of 6 or longer. Fifteen minutes is a long time to do nothing but breathe! I hear my sister's voice--"just sit still and smile." I hope it works!