Sleep Your Way to Lower Blood Pressure

Raena Morgan: Hello, I'm Raena Morgan with iHealthTube. We're chatting with Robert Kowalski. He is the author of The Blood Pressure Cure. And that's a strong word "cure," I'm glad to hear you say that, that there's a cure for high blood pressure. Robert Kowalski: There's no question about it. Just as the things that we do in modern Western lifestyle lead to the rise in blood pressure, so also we can start doing things to lower that pressure on a permanent level without the use of prescription drugs. Raena Morgan: Let's talk about all the variables that affect blood pressure, for example, sleep most of us wouldn't think that sleep affects our blood pressure but you say that it does in your book. Robert Kowalski: Oh absolutely. First of all, as we get into sleep our blood pressure naturally falls and that would be in a normal individual. They do what's is called a 24-hour ambulatory test where someone would wear that blood pressure cuff 24 hours a day and they keep readings on the computer to see what it's like throughout the entire 24-hour period, which we couldn't do on our own because we're sleeping, so we can't measure our own at that time. Now, as we're sleeping, blood pressure normally comes down. Well, here's the problem, if you're not getting a good night sleep, breathy, restful where you fall asleep at 10 o'clock at night and you wake up at 6 o'clock in the morning or whatever your normal schedule would be, then you're going to see little surges as you're waking up because everyone experiences what's called a morning surge in blood pressure. It's dropping down during the night as you're sleeping, then at the point where you wake up there's a little surge in the blood pressure, it goes up as you start into your day, into your waking hours. Now, if you're waking up, let's say you've been under some stress you wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and - and you start thinking about all of the things that are stressing you during your day and the problems that you're facing, balancing your checkbook, let's say paying the bills or whatever that happens to be. At that time, you're getting a surge. Now, let's say you fall back asleep and you wake up again at 4, another surge and each of those surges actually does some damage to the wall of the artery and increases the level of the blood pressure by so doing. Now, here's one of the biggest problems that we have with sleeping and it's called sleep apnea. Raena Morgan: Now, are a lot of people affected by that? Robert Kowalski: An awful lot of them. If you hear someone snoring it's likely that that person has sleep apnea. Now, the word means simply this, apnea is Greek for lack of oxygen. Raena Morgan: Okay. Robert Kowalski: We're not getting air. Well, the reason we don't get air is because we're not breathing. Literally, during the night, people will stop breathing. And, that's where they'll just it's just though they were literally dead. And, then all of a sudden they'll wake up and that's what the snoring is. That --, as they suddenly wake up and they're now for struggling to get air into the lungs to stay alive. There are people who are tested within the laboratories and, you know, what's called a sleep study, in a special laboratory, they put the electrodes on and test the person throughout the entire night. Some people, I'm not exaggerating this. Raena Morgan: All right. Robert Kowalski: Will wake up 50 times per hour. Raena Morgan: Per hour? Robert Kowalski: Per hour. That means that virtually every minute they're waking up. Raena Morgan: Struggling for air? Robert Kowalski: Yeah, they're waking up and then stop breathing again and it just keeps going like this throughout the entire time. That's why the people with sleep apnea will wake up in the morning feeling more tired than when they went to sleep at night. They've been struggling to stay alive, in effect, in a very real way just struggling to get air into their lungs, and therefore oxygen into the bloodstream. Well, there are a number of ways of handling that, that's beyond the scope of this discussion but by all means, if you are feeling that way in the morning, if your spouse has said you know you're keeping me awake, we ought to get separate bedrooms and it sometimes literally gets to that point, see your doctor. There are a lot of ways to deal with this problem very effectively and on a permanent kind of basis and it will help to get into a better night's sleep, which will in turn assure a lower blood pressure. Raena Morgan: So, that's how sleep really does affect our blood pressure those surges -- Robert Kowalski: Those surges, absolutely so. So, again, we want to get a good night sleep. And one of the things they've learned is that, when you're sleeping you can actively lower blood pressure while you sleep. Raena Morgan: Really? Robert Kowalski: And here two ways to do it. One, instead of taking that daily Aspirin tablet in the morning the way most people would, instead have that tablet in the evening just before you go to bed. And, when you do so, take another tablet along with it, that one's melatonin. We've heard about melatonin for getting over jet lag to signal the body that it's time to sleep. About a half hour before bedtime if you were to take that slow dose, it's not one of these things were if little is good, more is better. Actually, the lower doses work better. So, no more than 2 milligrams of melatonin in the evening, ideally 30 minutes to even an hour before bedtime will, number one, give you a better night sleep, and it actually acts in both cases the Aspirin and the melatonin to lower blood pressure while you're getting a good night sleep. Raena Morgan: Okay, thank you Bob.