- Your morning habits affect your blood pressure.
- Start your day phone-free, outside and with some deep breaths to help your blood pressure.
- Also try following the DASH diet, moving daily and limiting or avoiding alcohol.
Hypertension, or high blood pressure, affects nearly half of U.S. adults. If you have high blood pressure, you probably know that medication, diet and lifestyle changes are key for lowering your risk of serious health complications like heart attack and stroke.
But one often-overlooked factor includes your morning routine, which can support or hinder your blood pressure goals. Here are six expert-backed morning habits to set the tone for a healthier day ahead.
1. Avoid Screen Time
If you tend to wake up and immediately scroll your phone or check the news, it might be worth rethinking—especially if it tends to stress you out. Research links news consumption with increased anxiety, stress and mental fatigue. This doesn’t just include traditional news outlets, but also your social media feed, which often delivers a constant stream of headlines, opinions and emotionally charged content. Starting your day this way may increase your baseline stress levels, resulting in greater, prolonged stress throughout the day and higher blood pressure. Other acute stressors—like a heated comment thread or text message—can also cause a temporary rise in blood pressure as well.
Instead, Brooke Matheson, M.S., CSCS, a certified strength and conditioning specialist, recommends an easy walk, a meditation, a warm bath or listening to soothing music. “Any activity that you find relaxing has the potential to activate your parasympathetic nervous system and lower your blood pressure,” she says. Starting your morning off with a calmer state of mind can help you navigate the rest of your day with greater ease.
2. Eat Some Potassium at Breakfast
“Potassium helps balance sodium levels in the body and supports vasodilation, which can help lower blood pressure naturally,” shares Michelle Routhenstein, M.S., RD, CDCES, CDN, a cardiology dietitian and heart health expert. For guidance, try following the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), which is low in sodium and delivers three times the potassium compared to the average diet.
Luckily, many breakfast foods are high in potassium, such as potatoes, cantaloupe, Greek yogurt, apricots, orange juice and many fruits and vegetables. Try adding a banana to your oatmeal, whirling a kiwi into your smoothie or spreading avocado on your toast to get more potassium in your morning meal, suggests Routhenstein.
3. Go Outside
More time spent in nature is linked with lower blood pressure. Researchers aren’t entirely sure why time outside helps, but they suspect it’s a combination of reduced stress, increased movement and feelings of enjoyment.
Time outside in the morning may help in other ways too, especially on sunny days. Routhenstein says, “Morning sunlight can support vitamin D production, which plays a role in blood vessel flexibility and blood pressure regulation.” It also helps to regulate your circadian rhythm—or 24-hour clock—which is important for maintaining healthy blood pressure.
4. Monitor Your Blood Pressure
The only way to know your blood pressure is to monitor it regularly. Luckily, blood pressure is relatively easy to track with an at-home blood pressure cuff.
“A blood pressure reading is just a set of numbers taken at one moment in time,” states Jeffrey Le, D.O., an interventional cardiologist. “What is more important are blood pressure trends. Measuring your blood pressure trends throughout the daytime and nighttime can provide valuable information that can lead to a reduction in your risk of developing heart disease in the future.”
Try to measure your blood pressure around the same time of day. Often, the best time is in the morning before you get busy with the rest of your day. However, if you get a reading that’s 180/120 mm Hg or higher, seek medical attention immediately, as this is considered a hypertensive crisis.
5. Take Some Deep Breaths
Although breathwork practices have been around for thousands of years as part of different cultures, there is growing awareness today of their health benefits. According to Matheson, “Deep diaphragmatic breathing can activate your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the ‘rest and digest’ side of your autonomic nervous system. This can have an immediate effect on your blood pressure, as well as your stress.”
A systematic review of breathing exercises found that they help lower blood pressure and decrease heart rate. Fortunately, there are many guided meditation and breathwork apps that can help you learn to regulate your breathing. Or, you can practice on your own by spending a few quiet minutes in the morning slowly inhaling and exhaling in a calm space.
6. Limit Your Caffeine Intake
We’re not saying you can’t have a cup of coffee or tea—especially if that’s your morning jam— but too much caffeine can cause problems. Routhenstein explains, “Excess caffeine can trigger short-term spikes in blood pressure by stimulating the sympathetic nervous system and constricting blood vessels.”
The key is to avoid excessive caffeine and having too much in one sitting. Fortunately, most people can safely handle around 1 to 3 cups of coffee without it negatively impacting their blood pressure, according to a review study. In fact, coffee is a rich source of heart-healthy compounds such as chlorogenic acid, which have been shown to lower blood pressure and may balance out the impact of caffeine. Prefer green tea? It’s also rich in phytochemicals like catechins that may reduce blood pressure.
Other Things to Do Throughout the Day to Help Lower Blood Pressure
While good morning habits support healthy blood pressure, what you do later in the day matters too. Here are some other strategies to consider:
- Get a Good Night’s Sleep. Getting enough sleep is important for maintaining healthy blood pressure, as poor-quality and irregular sleep can cause it to rise. Matheson notes the importance of getting quality sleep, which can be challenging for people with sleep apnea. “Breathing through your mouth can increase blood pressure, so if you have a CPAP, wear it. If you think you might have sleep apnea, go get tested.”
- Be Mindful of Stress. While it’s important to de-stress in the morning, keep that mindfulness going throughout your day. To help unplug, Le recommends setting an alarm every few hours to remind yourself to put your phone down, stand up and stretch and even do some breathing exercises.
- Move Your Body. Getting regular exercise is important for both your mental and physical health, including maintaining healthy blood pressure. While morning workouts are great, what matters the most is actually getting up and moving—no matter the time of day or type of activity. “Don’t get too caught up in the details,” Matheson says. “Any exercise is beneficial.” Find something you like and keep your body moving throughout the day.
- Limit Alcohol. Alcohol guidelines recommend no more than one drink per day for women and two for men. However, if you have high blood pressure, you may want to cut back even further or consider abstaining altogether. One study found that just a single drink a day may increase systolic blood pressure. Fortunately, mocktails are becoming more popular, so why not give some a try?
Our Expert Take
Managing your blood pressure is key to preventing serious health complications like heart attack and stroke. Along with taking any prescribed medication, healthy lifestyle choices can make a difference—and that starts in the morning. Before you get going, try to limit screen time, get some morning sunlight, eat potassium-rich foods and take a few deep breaths.
Incorporating these tips into your morning and daily routine may help to support healthier blood pressure levels. Though they may help, regular check-ins with your doctor are still essential.
