Post COVID woes are just not ending. Everyone is facing a different set of persistent symptoms.

Raised heartbeat and palpitations, high blood sugar, anxiety and mood swings are almost an epidemic and one alarm-ing factor I am witnessing a lot in a lot many young people, some as young as 18 and twenty year olds too, is high blood pressure (HBP).

On World Hypertension Day, we take a look at this.

There are a lot of factors responsible for the young succumbing to this: inactivity, not enough exercise, weight gain, too much screen time, stress of taking exams and classes in a completely new format, lack of jobs and internships, uncertainty about the future, trauma due to loss of friends and family members, junk eating, increased alcohol drinking and smoking, boredom, comfort eating, relationship tussles between parents (that is affecting them), shrunk social circle, and more.

The scary part is that in most cases (specially the young) high blood pressure tends to stay hidden for a long time.

And even if the symptoms are there, they are usually vague – like dizziness, headache, nose-bleeds, flushing, tension and fatigue, so may get missed. Undetected HBP is very dangerous.

It is like a ticking time bomb, hidden in the body –because often by the time one finds out, an organ or two has been damaged.

The only fix for avoiding this damage is to keep a check, yes, even in the young.

• Know your BP

  A blood pressure reading, given in millimetres of mercury (mm Hg), has two numbers.

  The first, or upper, number measures the pressure in the arteries when the heart beats (systolic pressure). The second, or lower, number measures the pressure in the arteries between beats (diastolic pressure).

• Maintain a normal weight

When you have jelly belly, each kilogram of fat needs servicing by blood vessels, making your heart beat harder.

So focus on staying near your optimum weight.

• Lower salt intake

  Limit sodium intake to under 2 grams of sodium (translates to 5 gm or roughly 1 tsp of salt) a day and get plenty of potassium through dietary sources, that is from fruits and vegetables (bananas, leafy vegetables etc).

When you chow on salty foods your body retains more water in order to dilute the excess sodium, thus increasing the blood volume.

• Exercise everyday

  This is a disease of the lifestyle and exercise plays a big part in controlling it.

• Keep stress at bay, and learn to manage anger

  Anger can cause both psychological as well as biological changes in the body.

  People who are boiling inside but don’t show it are more likely to develop hy-pertension.

• Quit smoking

  Anything you do to lower blood pressure will be worth-less if you don’t address one of the biggest risk factors for hyperten-sion – smoking.

  Besides affecting your lungs, smoking elevates BP by increasing heart rate and constricting blood vessels.

• Cut down on alcohol

  Drinking more than 40-60 ml of alcohol every-day is a predisposing factor towards hypertension.

• Meditate

  This mind body practice helps reduce the activity of the au-tonomic nervous system and lower the systolic blood pressure.

• Have some mixed fruits and vegetable juice

  All fruits and vegeta-bles have potassium. Potassium helps sweep excess sodium from the circulatory system, causing blood vessels to dilate.

• Eat some tomatoes

  To get some lycopene, a phytochemical that has blood pressure lowering property. Buy the reddest tomatoes you can find.

  They contain the most lycopene.

• Eat beetroot regularly

This red roughage can keep the BP in check. The benefit is because of its high nitrate content, which get converted to nitric oxide in the body and helps to relax and dilate your blood vessels, improving blood flow and lowering blood pres-sure, thus keeping the blood pressure stable.

Fix it: Have Beetroot, tomato and amla juice everyday.

• Eat more oranges

  Oranges are one of the best sources of blood pressure lowering potassium.

• Have a banana (or two) everyday

  Eating bananas help lower blood pressure due to their high potassium content. You can try eating 2 bananas per day for one week to help tame your blood pressure.

• Use sesame oil for cooking

  It is the polyunsaturated fatty acids (sesame oil contains 43 %, olive oil 11 %), as well as the com-pound sesamin, which helps.

• Have garlic every day

  This heart-healthy herb, garlic may help lower your blood pressure and shield you from cardiovascular disease.

• Have fish

  The protein and omega-3 fatty acids in fish help keep ar-teries elastic, and blood pressure in check.