Recently I wrote, albeit more in passing, about my increased focus on health, based on tracking certain biomarkers. This is not because I live an unhealthy life, which I most certainly do not. Instead, I want to better understand my body and be aware of any potential issue, however minor. This became more relevant after I began taking methylphenidate (MPH) as a very common if not inevitable side effect is that it raises your blood pressure as well as your heart rate. I did notice this effect as well, so I explored if I could lower these biomarkers. Before I full delve into this topic, I want to add that my experience with doctors has not always been ideal. I once had an elevated reading during a routine checkout and the young but nonetheless surprisingly unattractive female doctor suggested I immediately start taking medication to lower my blood pressure to prevent it from becoming an issue later in my life. She needed to get her subscriber numbers up, it seems. I think the systolic pressure was slightly above 130, which is not even particularly alarming. I pretended to be curious to learn more, so I asked her about alternatives, to which she responded that there are none. Needless to say, you can actively get these numbers down, even without medication and this article describes how I managed to do so.

My starting point was that before MPH, I had pretty good numbers. It is ideal if your blood pressure is below 120/80 (systole/diastole), and your heart rate between 60 and 90. At 140/90 you may start to look into changing your lifestyle, in particular if you want to avoid taking meds. My numbers were around 120/80, but often below. With MPH, however, I initially had readings in the mid-120 and mid-80s, which was quite surprising as this was a noticeable jump. Around that time I also began to take daily measurements of these biomarkers to keep an eye on them, but I quickly concluded that I should tackle this issue head-on and explore certain lifestyle changes as well.

In terms of nutrition, I basically eliminated salt. This may seem unrealistic for many of you but within just a few days I have learned to enjoy food even without salting it. For instance, I used to routinely salt eggs. Yet, even without any salt they taste perfectly fine to me nowadays. In fact, an argument can be made that without salt you much better appreciate the natural taste of food. The other big change was greatly reducing my consumption of sausage and even most cheeses. Bread I also eat a lot less frequently. I cannot even estimate how much salt there is in bread but it must be a non-trivial amount. In addition to changing my nutrition, I started spending more time on endurance exercises, which I had neglected for far too long. For that purpose, I bought a skip rope, which I have been using more or less every day, with the goal of getting my heart rate up to the point where I can feel my heart beat faster. I also do a basic program of compound exercises, which probably also helps keeping the aforementioned biomarkes in check.

To give you some concrete numbers, here are my readings for the last seven days for systole, diastole, and heart rate:

107/75/59
115/78/59
115/77/52
111/77/64
107/77/57
116/77/59
121/74/56

All measurements were taken at approximately the same time in the evening. The only non-optimal value is a single systole of 121. Otherwise, the systole as at around a healthy 115, while the diastole sits consistently below 80. I did not take MPH on all these days, so the best conclusion is that even with MPH my numbers are at the level of a very healthy adult. For this assessment, keep in mind that according to the CDC, about half of adults have high blood pressure, i.e. a reading greater than 130/80. Either of theses two conditions have to be met for a high-blood-pressure diagnosis. In addition, my resting heart rate is low. The typical range for a healthy adult goes from 60 to 90, and I am consistently below that. Meditation probably also contributes to these results. After all, after I began taking MPH, I also changed my meditation routine. For the past few months I have meditated, once again, every single day. My resting heart rate used to be in the mid-60s but I have brought it down to below 60, even going as low as 52 a few days ago. I have such low readings about once a week, roughly as often as a reading in the low-60s. The data above is thus quite indicative of my long-term observations.

The gist of this article is that I was very surprised by how much you can influence your blood pressure and heart rate with simple lifestyle changes. Without MPH, my numbers would most certainly be even better but even with MPH I am in the optimal range. I intend to keep it this way. Now imagine how much healthier society could be if everybody did what I do! This is of course not realistic, but from a public health perspective, I think our elites should probably spend more time promoting a healthy lifestyle instead of vaxxes and medications. Well, who am I kidding? This is not going to happen under the current regime.