Lowering Your Blood Pressure Limit alcohol intake . Alcohol can raise blood pressure. Women who have high blood pressure, should limit alcohol intake to less than one drink a day. Maintain a healthy weight . Tobacco and cigarette smoking narrows blood vessels and raises blood pressure.
Regular exercise helps to maintain a healthy body weight and lowers resting blood pressure.
Follow a low fat, low sodium diet . For many people, reducing dietary sodium helps to lower blood pressure. The low fat diet is high in fruits and vegetables and includes low fat dairy products. The DASH trials produced some extremely promising results. Blood pressure reductions were seen in not only those with hypertension, but also in those with normal-high blood pressure, in other words those at risk of developing hypertension.