Any advice on lowering the bp specifically for a test?

[smiths87]

It is for gainful employment and the cutoff is 140/90. The first time through I was too high, so I went to the doc and am on Benicar HCT. Last time I had it read at the doc's it was 138/86. Much better than it was but I'm worried at re-test time it may spike due to stress, whitecoat, etc. Anyone have any experience with artificially lowering it just for one reading like this? Thanks.
Ohh - and it will be in the morn (7:45), if that makes a difference.

[Uff-Da!]

Do you have a blood pressure monitor at home? If so and provided you have a few days to experiment, I'd suggest taking your pressure both before and after certain things and see how you as an individual react, since not everyone reacts alike. I've personally noticed that my BP is lowered considerably after a warm bath, though I haven't checked to see how long it stayed down. (My heart rate went up considerably, though.) I've noticed that during the periods I was eating huge salads as my lunches, especially when I was eating large amounts of lightly steamed asparagus in my salads, that my BP was running lower than normal. That could have been just circumstantial, but I've made a note to check it out for myself. Just haven't had occasion to do it since I noticed this. There has been some research indicating that eating large amounts of celery is supposed to be good for BP. I assumed that that applied to long-term BP, but you might want to check it out for short-term if you have the time to do so. Green tea is also supposed to be good for BP.

For most people, vigorous exercise initially raises BP, then lowers it for a time. If this is the case for you, you might want to check and see how long it takes to go down and how long it stays down.

Deep breathing exercises and meditation are good for BP, especially for stress-induced increases.

[pal7778]

Take a fairly brisk mile walk that ends about 15 mins before. Or more generally, exercise in the hour before and do nothing (like drink coffee) to let anxiety build up.
Experimenting with exercise is good advice. Getting your self timed to 3-4 breaths a minute in the 15 mins before also ought to help. (Breathe in loudy on a 4 count, hold for 7, exhale loudly for 8--if you can tie this to your heart beat, all the better.) The best advice is don't think about the test or your bp at all, but it's impossible to follow that advice, of course.

[Lenin]

I found that no amount of drug intervention will get me a good reading in a White Coat situation...and I have taken some HUGE and scary agglomerations of BP drugs; nothing worked.
Next time I'll try pal's "treament."

[pal7778]

On bp, stress, and anxiety: I'm doing some pretty tough work right now that gets me anxious and angry etc. The result, my systolic bp in the morning (after 2 big cups of strong coffee) is about 115, in the afternoon (after work), 140. "By nature," it's supposed to be higher in the morning, but you (and medicine) can't help the fact that your hardwired to respond to "threatening" events. And those of us with bp problems respond more extremely. If you're really desperate, extreme dehyration will drop you bp a lot, but I think that exercise drop works in most cases. It's most extreme right at the point when your pulse returns to normal, but it doesn't last that long, esp. in a "stressful sitatuation."