6 Ways To Lower Your Blood Pressure For The DOT Physical

In technical terms, beets are high in nitrate, which, as your body turns it into nitric oxide, can help you lower your blood pressure by:

Relaxing the smooth muscles in your blood vessels. This helps to keep your arteries properly dilated.

Nitric oxide is an anti-platelet, that helps guard against blood clotting or thickening.

Both of these things help lower blood pressure by helping the blood to flow easier through your body.

A study conducted at Queen Mary University in London, England found that drinking a cup of beet juice daily had significant impact on blood pressure, and brought it back to normal range for most patients:

During the study, patients in the intervention group also experienced an improvement of around 20 per cent in blood vessel dilation capacity and around a 10% reduction in arterial stiffness. These changes in blood vessel function have been shown, by other studies, to be associated with substantial reductions in heart disease. There were no adverse side effects from the daily dietary nitrate.

Source: Daily beetroot juice lowers blood pressure, scientists find

You can buy beet juice in pretty much any supermarkety place, by now. Alternatively, there are several variations available, such as powder form and high-concentrate mix. If you're not really in to beet juice, there are many other alternatives high in nitrates:

• Strawberries
• Currents
• Gooseberries
• Raspberries
• Cherries
• Lettuce
• Carrots
• Green Beans
• Spinach
• Parsley
• Cabbage
• Radishes
• Eggplant
• Celery
• Collard Greens
• Arugula
• Rhubarb

The level of nitrates in these foods will vary greatly depending on the quality of the soil they were grown in.

Also note that "beet juice" is not to be confused with Beetlejuice, the 1988 comedy/horror/romance film featuring the one-and-only Michael Keaton in one of his finest on-screen performances.

Many people who get less than 5 hours of sleep per night may be at increased risk for developing high blood pressure. Sleep is a factor in regulating stress hormones, and keeping your nervous system healthy. Chronic lack of sleep could lead to high blood pressure, as over time your body may not be able to properly regulate stress hormones.

People with sleep apnea may be more susceptible to high blood pressure, as, if left untreated, it can cause very broken or fractured sleep patterns.

Source: Is it true that sleep deprivation can cause high blood pressure?

A study done in 2013, Epidemiological Evidence for the Link Between Sleep Duration and High Blood Pressure, reviewing the results of 21 previous studies involving 225,000 subjects, found that "short-sleepers", or those getting less than six hours per night, were 20% more likely to develop hypertension.

Source: Sleep and High Blood Pressure

In a recent insomnia conversation in our forum, Pianoman shared his secrets for getting decent sleep on the road:

Put the phone away. Don't talk on the phone, browse, watch movies, etc. I guess you can listen to music if that really helps you, but once you set the music up, don't mess with your phone the rest of the night (or whatever time of day you're sleeping). That little bright screen is a lot bigger culprit than you might think in robbing you of your precious sleep, even if you're only looking at it for a few minutes. I think it's more than the screen though--anytime you talk or do anything else on your phone, you're engaging your brain when you should be settling down to sleep.

Set a timer. I used to set mine for eight hours, but I tend to require a little more sleep than some other people (compliments of diabetes). If six or seven hours is enough for you, cool. During that time, don't get up for anything other than bathroom breaks.

Don't move. This one is kinda weird, but it works. Until that timer goes off, force yourself to just lie there, eyes closed, motionless. Seriously, don't even toss and turn. This usually actually helped me fall asleep, even though it was uncomfortable at first. Even if you don't fall asleep, you should feel more rested when you actually get up since you weren't expending much energy while you were down.

Keep it dark and cool. This one is pretty easy since trucks have good blackout curtains and you can use the A/C if you need it. I'm actually kinda jealous right now because I've been having trouble getting it dark and cool in my apartment during the day when I've been trying to sleep. The only time I had a hard time keeping it cool in my truck is when my A/C wasn't working.

Sleeping is kinda like driving--when it's time to sleep, you shouldn't be doing anything else.

Blood pressure aside, drinking plenty of water is central to maintaining a healthy body and mind, and is directly related to the proper function of many of the bodies processes. Simply put, if you do take in enough water, the body will retain more sodium, higher levels of which have been shown to increase blood pressure, as well as risk of heart attack and stroke for people with already-high blood pressure.

Inadequate water consumption can lead to dehydration, which can actually cause both low and high blood pressure. Increased sodium retention will lead to a gradual closing of the capillary beds, increasing pressure places on the arteries and increasing blood pressure.

A capillary bed is a concentration of capillaries which supply blood to a specific organ or area of the body. The density of the capillaries in a given bed can vary, depending on the requirements of the area it supports. These areas are an important part of the circulatory system, marking the point where the circulation reaches its terminus and loops back around to allow blood to pass through the heart and become re-oxygenated so that it can return to circulation.

Source: What is a Capillary Bed?

People with normal blood pressure shouldn't avoid salt intake, either, as not getting enough salt can actually cause these same issues. The ever-fluctuating science of nutrition recently indicated that salt wasn't necessarily the evil that it had been previously portrayed to be, but that people without other blood pressure or other cardiovascular issues can safely consume sodium in moderation, and that extremely low salt intake is also unhealthy.

Risks of high salt intake only found in people with hypertension

The relaxation response, a term he coined in the 1970's, is a deep physiological shift in the body that’s the opposite of the stress response. The relaxation response can help ease many stress-related ailments, including depression, pain, and high blood pressure. For many people, sleep disorders are closely tied to stress, says Dr. Benson.

~ Dr. Herbert Benson, director emeritus of the Harvard-affiliated Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine

Mindfulness meditation helps fight insomnia, improves sleep

Many studies have shown not only a link between stress-relieving meditation, yoga, or other relaxation exercise and lower blood pressure, but also other stress-related conditions such as insomnia, depression, and chronic pain.

The idea behind relaxation techniques is to take the mind's attention off of the immediacy of the moment, and direct it towards something soothing or calming, increasing your awareness of the body. It's also something that can be learned on your own, and practiced nearly anywhere.

Again, there are many positive long-term effects, as well, of staying relaxed and stress-free, as much as possible considering the day-to-day life of the typical truck driver. Beyond helping to control blood pressure, relaxation techniques can:

• Improve quality of sleep
• Improve digestion
• Help maintain normal blood sugar levels
• Lower fatigue
• Reduce frustration or anger
• Slow your heart rate
• Reduce muscle tension and chronic back pain
• Increase blood flow to major muscles

Relaxation techniques: Try these steps to reduce stress

Many people, for their own reasons, or for no reason, experience elevated blood pressure levels only before or during a doctor's visit or other appointment in a clinical setting. This phenomena has been labeled "white coat hypertension", or "white coat syndrome", and can be at least partially explained by patients anxiety or stress.

However, a 2015 study on white coat hypertension found that even though it is generally considered a temporary issue, the mortality rates of people assessed as white coat hypertensive were much higher than those with normal readings. It also found, though, that those at high risk generally brought with them a variety of other health conditions that most likely contributed to their deaths:

Compared with individuals in whom WCH was unstable, stable WCH was characterized by an older age, a greater body mass index, an increased left ventricular mass, and higher serum cholesterol and glucose values. Thus, factors other than the persistently elevated office BP may be abnormal in stable WCH, its increased cardiovascular risk being thus generated not only by an office BP elevation but also by risk factors other than BP.

Adverse Prognostic Value of Persistent Office Blood Pressure Elevation in White Coat Hypertension