April Plan to Lower Blood Pressure: Drink Tea Three Times Per Week

After three months of developing small habits that have successfully lowered my blood pressure, the goal for April is to drink tea three times per week. 

On top of this goal, I will be continuing the habits from January (yoga three times per week), February (eliminate added sugar) and March (meditate three times per week).

Why Tea?

In March, a new study was released, confirming the long-held beliefs that tea has some impressive heart-healthy benefits.

That struck me as interesting, and when I brought it up to my husband, he was excited about the idea of drinking tea as the experiment for Month #4. Because the last three months have been pretty commitment-heavy. And he thought we needed a little break from my little experiments. 

And keeping him happy is important, because without him I’m just over here doing this by myself.

So this month, we are going to be drinking tea three times per week. I’ll probably be drinking most of the tea on its own, though my husband will likely have it with cream and sugar. And by sugar, I mean maple syrup, which is what we use in our coffee. The study I linked to above does indicate you can have milk and sugar with the tea and still reap the benefits. Since your stomach does a good job of separating those out.

Also – my husband drinks a LOT of coffee. It’s a common joke in our house that someone is going to replace his coffee with DECAF and that will be the ultimate revenge on something he’s done or said. His goal is going to be to replace one cup of coffee per day with tea. We’ll see how that goes.

The Science

In addition to the above study, there have been many others over the years pointing to the benefits of tea. The European Society of Cardiology reports that tea drinkers live longer than non tea drinkers, and associates drinking tea at least three times per week with lower risks of cardiovascular disease. And that is just one of many studies on the topic. Some of the countries with the lowest rates of heart disease are tea-drinking cultures, like Japan, Korea and France. Though, there’s several healthy habits practiced in those countries that could potentially earn that benefit as well.

As we’ve bee noticing here in the Queen of Hearts experiment is that several habits over time lead to a healthier heart.

The Experiment

The plan is to stick to the three-days-a-week schedule, which worked out great for the January and March habits. Three days a week feels doable. If it were everyday, it might get overwhelming, since there’s no leeway. Which could lead to guilt, which could lead to quitting. This way, LIFE can happen, mistakes can be made. And I can still work in some tea. 

Remember, the goals we’re going for here are supposed to be simple and sustainable.

If you remember from The Plan post, there are measured ways to form habits, according to the British Journal of General Practice.:

1. Decide on a goal that you would like to achieve for your health.
2. Choose a simple action that will get you towards your goal which you can do on a daily basis.
3. Plan when and where you will do your chosen action. Be consistent: choose a time and place that you encounter every day of the week.
4. Every time you encounter that time and place, do the action.

So the plan for March is to:

1. Decide on a goal: Drink tea three times per week
2. Choose a simple daily action that moves you toward the goal: Set an alarm for 3 pm every weekday – tea time!
3. Plan a consistent when and where you will perform the action: At 3 pm, on my office sofa – take a tea break.
4. Do the action. This is the hard part, isn’t it?

If I achieve this goal, I will have successfully given myself the opportunity to take three breathing breaks per day: one at noon, for meditation, one at 3 pm, for tea time, and one at 5 pm, to end the workday and do some yoga.

Work has gotten especially stressful recently, so I honestly look forward to these forced breaks now.

While the alarm is set for every weekday, I won’t be able to or won’t choose to do these things everyday. But three days a week I will. That seems feasible.

See the REALLY EXCITING results of this month’s experiment.