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How to Give Yourself High Blood Pressure

November 7th, 2006 Ozzy

High blood pressure isn’t a nice thing, it can lead to premature death via kidney failure, stroke, heart attacks to name but a few. Blood pressure tends to rise with age due to a variety of factors including stiffening and furring of the arteries which makes the heart have to work harder to push blood around and this ‘pushing harder’ means higher blood pressure. We have compiled a list of the most effective ways of raising your blood pressure!

The easiest way to boost both your systolic and diastolic blood pressures is to put weight on - the more the better. The bigger you are the more blood you have and the more blood vessels you have and so the harder your heart has to work to ensure that all your body’s cells are getting the fuel, oxygen and nutrients they need. I have an article that outlines the best ways to gain weight quickly if you are stuck for ideas about how to bloat fast.

Eat as much ‘hard’ fat as you can. Animal fat, butter, lard, cheese, full fat milk, cream, ghee, coconut, palm oil, processed meat products (i.e. burger, hot dogs etc) etc all contain more than their fair share of saturated fat and it is this hard fat that cruises round your blood stream looking for somewhere to latch onto. The accumulation of these fatty deposits on the inside of your arteries results in ‘furred’ arteries which are narrower than they would be on account of the fat that’s clogging them. Narrower blood vessels means a higher blood pressure is needed to get blood through them, so eating fatty meat products or cheesey / creamy foods etc is a great way to increase your blood pressure. Worthy of particular note are the ‘trans’ fats also refered to as ‘hydrogenated vegetable oil / fat’ which are made from vegetable oil that has been made solid (at room temperature) by passing hydrogen through it - these kinds of fats are quite widely used in many processed foods, snacks, cakes, chocolate, biscuits, margarine etc. Anyway, the trans fats / hydrogenated veg oils etc are noteworthy as they appear to be *worse* than normal saturated fat - so double portions of chocolate biscuits all round!

Start smoking or smoke more than you are doing now. Smoking tobacco constricts your blood vessels pretty much instantaneously and if the blood vessels shrink then by definition your blood pressure sky rockets. Smoking is an excellent and efficient way to stress your heart although it’s not as cheap a method of raising your blood pressure as it used to be, not in the UK anyway. Note: if you find the idea of smoking to be an unpalatable way to raise your blood pressure you can console yourself with the fact that because (a) nicotine (the drug that you’re smoking the tobacco for) enters the blood stream so quickly and (b) that it is metabolised from the blood stream in a very short time (i.e. minutes) and (c) that your body becomes tolerant to nicotime very quickly, that you won’t need to smoke for very long before you become physically addicted to smoking. So if you persevere with smoking regularly for the first few weeks you’ll find that you’re over the worst of it and that it soon becomes a craving that demands being satisfied.

Drink too much alcohol is good for another few points on your blood pressures. By ‘too much alcohol’ I mean more than one or two beers / glasses of wine a day. Beware, drinking a modest amount of alcohol (say one drink a day) can actually *lower* your blood pressure so to keep it high make sure you either drink no alcohol or, preferably, drink a bucket load each day.

Make sure your diet is rich in sodium (i.e. salt, MSG etc). Sodium encourages the retention of fluid which equates to an elevated blood pressure. So to push your blood pressure higher you should make sure that you regularly eat takeaways, junk food, processed food, tv meals, tinned food, seafood, salted snacks etc and also add sea salt / sauces to your meals. Note that these kinds of foods tend to be calorifically dense so they will help you put weight on too thereby boosting your blood pressure further.

Avoid or reduce the amount of exercise you do. In scientific study after scientific study it has been shown that regular aerobic exercise reduces your blood pressure and strengthens the heart muscles. So in order to keep your blood pressure high or raise it further you need to become more sedentary. Reducing the amount of exercise you do will mean that you’ll put more weight on (unless you diet) which will further enhance the blood pressure raising effect.

Elevated and constant levels of stress raise blood pressure too. So why not become a city trader or a school teacher (that’s *got* to be stressful!) or become a perfectionist or just one of those people that everyone refers to as a ‘worrier’. Work long hours, don’t take breaks (or holidays / vacations for that matter), skimp on sleep, make sure you commute long distances and don’t practice any ‘relaxation techniques’ like Tai Chi, Yoga or going for casual strolls etc. Tip: if your life isn’t actually that stressful then you can always mimic the effects of stress by consuming caffeine which induces an adrenaline-like response in the body which increases your pulse rate and raises blood pressure.

If you follow the advice above I can pretty much guarantee your blood pressure will go on the up and up! If you have any other tips you have found effective in raising your blood pressure then please let me know.

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