High blood pressure is considered a “silent epidemic,” as lots of people have it but don’t know it.   The usual treatment is drugs, and there are some dietary suggestions as well, especially cutting down on salt and fat as promoted by Dean Ornish and Nathan Pritikin.  Stress reduction is highly recommended as well.  However, there seems to be more to the issue than salt and stress.

Samuel J. Mann, M.D., an associate professor of clinical medicine at the Hypertension Center of The New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, is a hypertension specialist.   Dr Mann has seen thousands of people with all varieties of high blood pressure.  He began to notice a pattern that did not accord with the common view that stress is linked to this condition.  “Even patients with severe hypertension did not seem more emotionally distressed than others,” he writes in his book Healing Hypertension: A Revolutionary New Approach  (John Wiley & Sons, NY: 1999).  “If anything, they seemed less distressed.  Their high blood pressure appeared to be more related to what they did not seem to be feeling than to what they were feeling.”  He began to see in his patients that old, un-healed, repressed trauma seemed to be a major culprit in the problem.

These are the main concepts covered by Dr Mann in his book, and they warrant serious attention.
1.  Blood pressure fluctuates all the time, day by day, and there has been extensive over-diagnosis and unnecessary treatment of millions of people.
2.  Anger or stress can elevate blood pressure temporarily, but do not actually cause hypertension.
3.  Here is the kicker: “it is our hidden emotions, the emotions we do not feel, that lead to hypertension and many other unexplained physical disorders.”
4.  To deal with hypertension at its core, it is necessary to bring those hidden emotions to the light, to consciousness, and to deal with them.
5.  For those who are under the care of a physician for hypertension, incorporating this new information can help the physician select a more appropriate drug, if required, to match it to the cause of the condition.

While for many people there are contributing factors to hypertension such as genetics, obesity, and salt consumption, for countless others it may be driven mainly by repressed feelings due to traumatic experiences.  Generally it is not easy to deal with these, and the process can be painful.  However, it may be worth it.  What I liked best is that Dr Mann points out that we have a choice: those who are willing to face their hidden demons can take on the work of uncovering them, while those who do not want to deal with these issues can opt for the standard medical treatment to help control the condition.  What is not advisable is to ignore it.

For a dietary approach, cutting out added salt is the standard route.  It would also pay to  avoid all manner of commercial foods with added sodium, of which there are many.  Read the labels carefully!  In addition, high-fat eating may contribute to the problem, so eating lots of vegetables, cooked and raw greens, beans and grains would be a good idea, as proposed by the Pritikin and Ornish diets.  Curiously enough, plant foods with natural sodium, such as celery and bananas, can also help in lowering blood pressure, so some pieces of celery daily and a banana before bedtime would be good.  Give it a try!

Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D.

ANNEMARIE COLBIN, Ph.D., CHES, is an award-winning leader in the field of natural health   She founded Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts (TM) in New York City in 1977, and is adjunct professor of nutrition at the city’s Empire State College. She is the author of four books, including The Book of Whole Meals (Autumn Press, 1979; Ballantine Books, 1983), The Natural Gourmet (Ballantine Books, 1989, 1991), and Food and Healing (Ballantine Books, 1986, 1996).  Her website is: www.foodandhealing.com