The No-Fail 2 Things You Need To Do To Combat Hypertension Now!

Today, most people are affected with some form of blood pressure issue and high blood pressure or hypertension is the cause for 15% of the deaths each year in America, says Harvard University. This means that over 600,000 Americans lose their lives to high blood pressure annually!

1. Tickle your funny bone for a strong heart

A small study presented at the American Heart Association meeting in Atlanta, GA showed that laughter could in fact help lower systolic blood pressure (the first/top number which measures the pressure in your blood vessels when your heart beats) by about 10 points in just 20 minutes!

Participants in the study were first asked to watch a 20-minute comedic video clip. Researchers then measured the participants' blood pressure and found that watching funny videos not only lowered people's blood pressure but it also lowered their cholesterol levels too!

The very same participants were then asked to watch a 20-minute clip of a serious war/action film. Researchers then measured the participants' blood pressure and found that watching the war/action film had no positive lowering effect on the participants' blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

2. Karaoke nights are fun—and your heart will thank you for them!

There are many reasons why Japanese people are the longest-living people in the world.

One reason is the fact that traditional Japanese meals are very well-balanced, utilizing more fish than red meat, lots of vegetables, incorporating pickled & fermented foods, and only small portions of rice. It hardly involves highly processed food and has lower sugar overall. To

simplify—the Japanese diet is very different from the American diet in that it is low in calories and extremely nutritious.

But there is another reason why Japanese people live longer and it involves their love for music!

Ever since Japanese inventor & businessman Daisuke Inoue invented the karaoke machine in 1971, karaoke has grown into a $10 billion a year industry in Japan. About 280,000 of Japan's 350,000 nightclubs and bars have karaokes and there are about 140,000 "private singing rooms" that can be rented hourly—sometimes individuals even go to them alone!

A study conducted by Osaka University’s Graduate School of Medicine found that participants who took part in twice-a-month group singing/music sessions were able to lower their systolic blood pressure by an average of 5-10 points after three months.

A total of 90 men & women (aged 40-74) took part in the every-other-week hour-long music sessions where they sang, listened to and did stretches to their choice of pop, jazz or classical music.

Comparatively, another control group that did not receive the said “music therapy” had no positive lowering effect on their blood pressure at all.

And while a 5-10 point reduction is relatively modest, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, Dr. Michael Miller says that blood-pressure reductions of this size are still linked to a 5% to 15% lower risk of death from heart disease or stroke.

"I think there's definitely a physiological effect going on, some sort of mind-heart connection," says Dr. Miller who has conducted similar research.

Read more about how the cinnamic acid from Ceylon cinnamon supplements can help manage blood pressure here