How long does it take for brisk walking to lower blood pressure?

Hypertension is a relatively common chronic disease, which is quite harmful to human health. In addition to good treatment, moderate exercise can also help lower blood pressure. Investigations have found that brisk walking has a certain blood pressure lowering effect. It can lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure. To achieve such an effect, you should understand some exercise methods, exercise time, etc. Let's take a look at this aspect.

How long does it take for brisk walking to lower blood pressure?

Studies have found that regular aerobic exercise can reduce systolic blood pressure by an average of 11.3 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure by 7.5 mmHg. This may sound a little strange: after all, exercise makes the heart beat faster and harder, so it must cause blood pressure to rise instead of fall! This is true: during exercise, systolic blood pressure does rise, but diastolic blood pressure does not. However, once the exercise is over, blood pressure often drops lower than before and may stay lower for several hours. A short-term study on the effects of exercise on men with moderate hypertension found that after exercise, blood pressure continued to drop for eight to twelve hours, and blood pressure on the day of exercise was lower than when no exercise was performed.

Regular exercise lowers triglycerides and blood sugar

If a pill were invented that could significantly lower blood pressure, reduce the risk of heart attack or stroke, effectively fight osteoporosis and type 2 diabetes, help lose weight, relieve depression, make you look more attractive, and reduce the chance of death, would you take it? Of course you would! Unfortunately, I don't have such a pill, but you can still get all of the above effects through regular exercise. Regular exercise can also:

Lowers blood pressure: Significantly reduces the risk of developing high blood pressure.

Reduce LDL (bad cholesterol) and total cholesterol: High levels of both can lead to clogged arteries, which can easily cause coronary heart disease, heart attack and stroke. Compared with sedentary lifestyle, exercise can reduce total cholesterol by 24% and LDL by 10%.

Increase HDL (good cholesterol): HDL carries cholesterol away from artery walls, and exercise can increase HDL levels by an average of 6%.

Lower triglycerides: High triglyceride levels increase the risk of coronary artery disease.

Lowers blood sugar: High blood sugar (diabetes) can damage vital organs, including the kidneys, heart, blood vessels, and eyes. Exercise helps improve insulin resistance and helps the body use glucose more efficiently.

Improve endothelial function: When there is a problem with the vascular endothelium, blood vessels constrict and blood pressure rises. Exercise helps blood vessels produce nitric oxide, which makes blood vessels more elastic in contracting and relaxing, improving blood flow and lowering blood pressure.