A neurologist has revealed four simple steps he claims could help people ditch blood pressure medication “within a few months”.
Dr Clint Steele says techniques including meditation, exercise and diet changes could mean patients no longer need to rely on pills.
The 56-year-old brain specialist focuses on improving quality of life by boosting brain function and helping prevent – or even reverse – diseases like dementia.
READ MORE: ‘I’ve REVERSED my elderly parents AGEING through weight lifting – people think their progress is AI’
- Advertisement -
In a TikTok video that has racked up more than 173,000 views, the medic stresses people should always speak to their GP before stopping any medication.
But he says tackling the root cause of high blood pressure could make a major difference.
“If you’re on blood pressure medication, you have a high blood pressure problem – even though you think that your blood pressure medication is keeping your blood pressure under control,” Dr Steele told Whats The Jam.
“The logical simple way to think about that is ‘what would happen to your blood pressure if you went off your medication?’
“If your answer is ‘it would go back up’ you still have a blood pressure problem.
- Advertisement -
“That medication isn’t really getting to the cause of your blood pressure issue, it’s just covering up the symptoms so what we need to do is move your brain out of survival mode.
“We’ve got to move it out of being over aroused, we’ve got to get it to relax and feel safe and move it into what I call survival mode or healing mode.
“And at that point, then your brain will naturally lower your blood pressure without medication.
- Advertisement -
“Now please know I’m not telling you to go off your medication right now, you need to work with your doctor to wean yourself off as you start to fix your brain, as you start to get control of your brain and move it into healing mode.”
Dr Steele says the key is getting the brain into a calmer “healing mode”.
He said: “Things like learning how to breathe properly with your diaphragm.
“These includes things like meditation, it includes slow down regulating exercise like yoga and Tai Chi and qigong.
“It includes changing your diet and a whole host of other things.”
He claims these steps could help “95% of people on blood pressure medication” come off it within “three to four months”.
In the clip, the neurologist argues high blood pressure is “actually a brain problem”, caused by the body reacting to stress and going into fight-or-flight mode.
Dr Steele added: “When your brain is stuck in survival mode, it is over aroused, it is in fight/flight, it is going to naturally increase your blood pressure and that is very simply so you can survive.
“If the fire alarm were to go off right now, if a lion was chasing you right now, you want your blood pressure to go up because you want more blood being pumped out to your muscles so you can run faster, so you can be stronger, so you can survive, you can escape.
“The problem is most people don’t come all out of that survival mode and the reason for that is because your brain doesn’t know the difference between a fire alarm stress, or a lion chasing you stress, or relationship stress or financial stress or even a fear or worry or an imagined stress.
“Even to your brain that is just stress and when it’s stressed, it’s going to move into survival mode, it’s going to naturally increase your blood pressure.”
Dr Steele, who practises in Maine and Florida in the US, has spent 34 years studying brain health and dementia prevention.
He has also previously recommended a simple six-minute daily habit to help reduce the risk of dementia.
The doctor suggests reading for just six minutes a day could lower the chances of conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
He points to research showing that boosting “cognitive reserve” can help protect against dementia – encouraging people to learn new skills like languages, dancing or simply picking up a book each day.
