9 Things That Put You at Risk for High Blood Pressure

1. Family History
People who have family members with high blood pressure have greater chances of having it in the future.


2. Being Overweight
People who weigh more need more blood pumped into their organs to make them work properly. As more blood circulated through your system, more pressure is exerted on your arteries. For this reason, we are advised to keep a healthy weight.


3. Physical Inactivity
The normal person has a heart rate ranging from 60 to 100 beats per minute. Athletes have lower heart rates indicating better heart function. When a person is physically inactive, their heart rates tend to be on the higher range. Higher heart rates mean that our heart have to work harder to circulate blood throughout our bodies, thus, exerting more force to our arteries. This eventually causes high blood pressure.


4. Ethnicity
African Americans are more prone to high blood pressure, while Asians are at lower risk


5. Stress
Stress temporarily increases our blood pressure. However, being at constant states of stress eventually increases the risk of becoming hypertensive.


6.To o much salt in diet
Have you ever noticed that after a high sodium meal, you tend to be bloated? This is because sodium adds fluids into our blood by pulling it out of our tissues. When this happens, the volume of our blood increases, which results in our heart having to pump harder.


7. Smoking
Cigarettes contain ingredients, specifically tobacco, that cause our arteries to narrow. This increases the pressure exerted on our artery walls leading to high blood pressure.


8. Drinking too much alcohol
It has been shown that having more than two drinks a day increases your chances of elevated blood pressure.


9. Age
As we age, our risk of getting high blood pressure increases. This is mostly due to the hardening of our arteries as we age. Also, men are more prone to high blood pressure when they get to middle age. For women, their risk increases when they reach menopause.