High Blood Pressure

Yes, that is high. The older you get, the higher it goes as a very general rule, but if you are metabolically healthy, have no comorbidities, don't smoke or ingest too much caffeine daily, don't eat much restaurant, fast food, are not overweight, and are reasonably cardiac-healthy and physically fit (yeah, that's asking a lot!), your blood pressure should be between 110-150/65-95 during the active part of the day, a little stressed, missed lunch...a typical mid-day. Awaking in the morning, after a decent sleep, you should be in the 110-125/60-80 range, but if you can, measure your BP before moving. If you do this after moving around, or sipping that first cup of jo, you'll have a higher BP.

Consult a physician about this result, and don't go long before doing it!!

I'm just wondering if anyone else has tried Dr. Weil's 4-7-8 breathing technique as a means to reducing high blood pressure? It originally interested me because it said that deep breathing is a form of relaxation before bedtime that will improve sleep. It also "might" reduce blood pressure. So I started practicing 4-7-8 breathing at bedtime and for the most part my sleep improved. I then started doing 4-7-8 breathing in the morning before I started moving around, rested for a minute or 2 and then took 2-3 blood pressure readings with a couple of minutes rest between readings. And I recorded the results. Yes indeed, my blood pressure went down: systolic, diastolic and sometimes the pulse rate. It takes 1 minute to do 3 478 breathing cycles, so in 15 minutes I can do 45 478s and my bp can drop 15 points or more. If my bp isn't where I want it to be (in the 130s), I do another 10 478 cycles and take my bp again. Even after taking bp 3 times, my bp can continue to drop during the morning. And mind you, this happens without adding a new medication. It requires no equipment although I use the online 478 app to keep track of the cycles. To me, it's time well spent. What baffles me is why doctors don't recommend deep breathing to their patients to reduce blood pressure. There are a variety of approaches. If you're dealing with high blood pressure, it's certainly worth a try.

I haven't tried the deep breathing, but it couldn't hurt...at worst. It can help some to relax more, or even to improve their SPO2 levels throughout the day if they tend to be 'breath-holders' when they're concentrating on a task.
I have seen numerous claims that isometric exercises repeated throughout the day can help to reduce your BP into the safe(r) zone, reducing it by at least 5 points. In fact, there are some YouTube channels making that claim, and there is this:

I did isometrics in the 1950s so I was interested in the British study that said certain isometric exercises are effective in lowering blood pressure. YouTube is on fire demonstrating the isometric exercises used in the British study. I tried a couple of them and just couldn't sustain my interest. I was bored trying to hold the wall squat for 2 minutes. The hand exercise in the British study is similar to the hand exercise I've been doing for a while to strengthen my hands so I can put on compression stockings, but even here I couldn't sustain my interest and went back to the hand exercise I was already doing. And then I discovered deep breathing. It was so easy to get into -- with immediate results. The thing is that either approach does not involve new medication and all the issues about drug interactions, etc. So why not do it?