Blood pressure refers to the pressure put on your arterial walls when the heart beats and pushes blood through your arteries. It’s a vital part of the equation when it comes to living, but when blood pressure is too high, it can lead to serious health complications. In fact, uncontrolled high blood pressure can result in a higher risk for stroke, heart disease, heart attack, and kidney failure. And while there are medications out there to help lower blood pressure, these can come with all sorts of side-effects.

The easiest, most natural way to lower your blood pressure is by enacting lifestyle changes. Let’s look at what you can do to get your blood pressure down naturally.

Change your diet

To start with, changes to your diet can directly play a role in reducing blood pressure. Diets that are especially high in salt, fat, and cholesterol have all been found to increase blood pressure. That’s why you should opt for a greener diet that includes more vitamins, minerals, and leafy vegetables.

As reported in Greenmatters, eating more potassium-rich foods has been proven to help regulate blood pressure as well. Foods that are high in potassium include nuts and seeds, tomatoes, bananas, avocados, fresh tuna, apricots, and salmon — though fish also contains cholesterol, so the bad could outweigh the good here. Another good tip is to avoid too much caffeine and alcohol.

Reduce stress levels

Beyond diet, finding ways to destress can lower blood pressure. Stress has been found to play a key role in how hard our blood is pumping. A little stress is fine from time to time, but chronic stress can really pump up your blood pressure for extended periods of time. To cut the stress, we recommend meditating, journaling, spending time outdoors, and simply discovering what things make you feel more relaxed.

Perhaps it’s reading, perhaps it’s bathing. Just make sure your relaxing activity isn’t something unhealthy like eating a bucket of ice cream.