As a nurse you have to look at factors that you can change.
1. Diet - avoid high sodium foods. Generally this is processed foods. Microwave meals, Ramen noodles, chips, beef jerky, pork skins, can foods, fast food sunflower seeds, salted peanuts. Keep you sodium intake low
2. Exercise - Cardio is great. However even weight lifting with a low to moderate weight with lots of reps is good as well. The key is to get you heart rate up and keep it there for a sustained period. Keep your breaks between reps short. 1 minute or less.
3. Stress - This is changeable to a point. Try not to stress over small things. Things that are stressing you they can be removed do so. There are going always be those stressors that are just there that you can't get rid of. But don't allow stress that isn't necessary to linger.
4. Avoid excess alcohol. 1 or 2 drinks every other day should be the max. No more than 3 in a single sitting and that should be once a month or less.
5. If obese start a process to lose weight. Exercise regularly. Lower your calorie intake consistently for an extended period of time.
6. Avoid Tobacco use. This is a no brainier. There is nothing good about smoking. In addition to your blood pressure it puts you at risk of every kind of cancer. Not just lung cancer or throat cancer.
The factors you can't change are age, genetics and your sex. Males are higher risk. If you have a family history then that's just that. You can't choose your lineage. Getting older is part of life.
However you can choose to act on factors 1 - 6. Those can be the difference of a high blood pressure and one within range!
