7 herbs that naturally lower blood pressure

a young man recently came in to see me who was panicking because he was only 35 and recently he was experiencing high blood pressure for the first time he told me specifically he wanted to try lifestyle and non-pharmaceutical interventions first to try to get his blood pressure under control so what we started off with was working with him on herbal formulas but in general there are formulas and herbs that have been used for thousands of years floor blood pressure of course ancient people didn't know that the symptoms of a headache or this flushed face were hypertension but the symptoms have always existed right and people have died of heart attacks and strokes probably for Millennia of course it is skyrocketing into becoming one of the main issues that we see today for people and it really is in many ways a disease of affluence now what are some of these herbs that have been used for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine and what effect scientifically do they have on the body that's what we're talking about here today hey guys I'm Dr Alex Hine board licensed acupuncturist and doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book master of the day so let's jump in now when this young man came into my practice he had been very concerned because number one he was so young and number two the advice he'd been given from his primary care Doc and his cardologist where you're going to have to take this medication for the rest of your life we have no intention of taking you off it because cardiovascular disease is scary and it's the main killer of people in the US and he said you know what I don't believe that that's going to be true for me I think there's a lifestyle reason and a stress reason I'm here so let's do what we can to get the blood pressure under control what's interesting is that every acupuncture treatment by itself can drop blood pressure 10 to 20 points by the end of the treatment it's very common to see heart rate go down even arrhythmias like heart palpitations people have can stop after an acupuncture treatment temporarily not only is there clinical research it is experiential it is obvious anecdotally when you treat patients you take their blood pressure before and after there is a huge variation so acupuncture alone can bring blood pressure down acutely right then and there after 1 hour but I specialize in Internal Medicine on the formula side so we started off by doing weekly acupuncture with this particular patient and then we got him on a longer term formula to deal with some of the issues he was having for example lots of people who have high cholesterol and high blood pressure often have acid reflux and by treating the acid reflux lots of the formulas we use will often drop the blood pressure 10 to 20 points I've seen that even if they're already on medication for hypertension but in general over about 3 or so months we got this guy's blood pressure down about 20 points to the point where it was within healthy range and he no longer needed to take the medication that he was on and the blood pressure was stable so there are alternatives for this but what are some of those herbs that we use let's jump in and let's discuss more one of the common questions this particular patient was asking me a lot is what is the root cause of this is it stress is it a organ problem is it a physiological pathway problem what is it now I put together a free quiz for figuring out what is the root cause of your symptoms from specifically a traditional Chinese medicine point of view now that link is right below this video and it goes into it's like 10 pages long the most common symptoms of each you know pattern differentiation as we call it in Chinese medicine and also we link to a lot of the core videos on the channel that will help you figure out those symptoms the whole damn thing is free guys download it and check it out because it will help you a lot so herb number one that can help with high blood pressure is called Salvia or danen danen has been shown with research to improve blood flow and it also has a mild blood pressure lowering effect due to its ability to cause Vaso dilation herb number two is an herb called Hawthorne or Shanah Shanah is often used for what we call Food stagnation right a lot of indigestion more modern formulas use shja for and it's also a very tasty dessert cake in China but modern research shows that it's very good for blood pressure Hawthorn which is critius has been shown that it can improve cardiovascular health and has a significant anti-hypertensive effect possibly due to its ability to also dilate blood vessels and improve coronary blood flow herb number three is Chinese skull cap or Hangin scaria is one of the most common herbs I see in my practice that we end up using again don't ever use this herb as a single herb because lots of these herbs that can improve liver and kidney function if you are self- diagnosing and self treating and taking high doses you can also damage your liver and kidneys just as you can do that with Tylenol you can do that with herbs don't mess around see someone licensed so function is one of the common herbs we use with acid reflux like the patient I mentioned when people come in with acid reflux and hypertension this pattern is commonly indicative of using Chinese skull cap Hangin Hangin has a compound in it that has been shown to have an anti-hypertensive effect by again promoting Vaso dilation and it also reduces oxidative stress herb number four Ginger this is I think the only food grade herb we're going to talk about here maybe there's one or two others but Ginger is both a food grade herb as well as a medical grade herb depending on the dosage when people put ginger into their food they're putting you know or capsules even they're taking 500 Mig but we use 9 g a day of Ginger and in a formula high in ginger for indigestion if you think 300 Mig of Ginger is going to change your life or your health it won't but look at the dosages we use in traditional Chinese medicine Ginger is traditionally used to enhance circulation both in the GI as well as cardiovascular and it's been shown in some studies to lower blood pressure by acting as a natural calcium channel blocker and it also improves vascular Health herb number five is celery seed the extract has been shown to lower blood pressure in both animal and human studies probably due to its diuretic effects and its ability to relax the muscles around the arteries celery again being also that food grade to medical grade depending on how you use it the dosage you use it falls into that category like ginger herb number six is garlic now garlic has been well researched for cardiovascular health including lowering blood pressure it's believed to work by stimulating the production of nitric oxide which helps relax blood vessels herb seven gko gko has been used for a lot of memory issues in Chinese medicine and it's also used for actually asthma lots of respiratory issues as well so gko has been studied for its ability to improve circulation and the potential an anti-hypertensive effects similar to garlic in a way it works on enhancing nitric oxide production and also improving you know vascular function overall so seven herbs that can help with blood pressure one of the most common issues that I see clinically keep in mind acupuncture alone can do that if you go in weekly so find a skilled acupuncture as someone you trust they can also help you prevent yourself from getting on those medications if you don't want to again if you guys want to book a visit with me personally in Los Angeles or virtually via tele medicine I work with a very limited number of new patients every single month if you want to reach me and my clinic in practice you can either go to Dr Alex hind.com clinic or there's information below to call or reach out to us directly and don't forget there's a root cause quiz we've put together here it's like 10 pages long it's valuable you can click this little card here that will send you to that link and I have another great video on blood pressure and herbs that can help you right here