Each year in the United States, 50,000 deaths can be affiliated with High Blood Pressure, or Hypertension, according to the American Heart Association. Hypertension can be a serious detriment in your body’s well-being. It can damage your kidneys, your liver, your brain, your eyes, and most importantly your heart. High blood pressure is not something that’s hard to fix. It can be caused by a bad diet, or stress in your life; however there are many ways, some more insipid than others, to lower your blood pressure. Of course there are diets to help it and having low amounts of sodium that can prevent high blood pressure, but some people just don’t have the energy to do those things. People will be more open to trying these things:

1) Look up funny jokes on the internet. Studies from the University of Maryland have shown that laughing lowers high blood pressure.

2) Petting cats or dogs– believe it or not– can lower your blood pressure. It has been scientifically proven, I swear!

3) Start growing plants, man. Apparently planting, watering, or harvesting plants helps a tremendous amount with stress levels and high blood pressure because it supposedly helps people become focused on the living thing they need to now take care of.

4) Do a load of laundry or two, and make sure the detergent is lavender scented! Doing laundry, psychologically, helps reduce stress because it makes a person feel cleaner and more pure than before, and aroma therapists suggest that the scent of lavender is extremely helpful to your serotonin level (which is your pleasure hormone). Though, if you don’t like the scent of lavender, try a scent that you know you’re going to love.

5) Listen to some music! But… not heavy, death-metal, screaming music that gets you hyped up and angry. Even if you don’t like classical music, try it out. Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi and other classical composers wrote their music for the soul-purpose of pleasure (even though there were probably deeper meanings behind their works of art). There aren’t words, so it’s not something you can listen for and try to relate to. If that doesn’t suit your fancy, that’s cool too. Try listening to recordings of the ocean. Sorry guys, I don’t suggest A Day to Remember, Adele, Eminem, or Taylor Swift on this one.

6) Take one hour of your day, to take the battery out of your phone and relax as you watch T.V, read a book, bake cupcakes, or play Sims 3 on the computer. I don’t care if your boyfriend or girlfriend needs you and they’re mad at you the next day for ignoring them for a measly hour. If they really loved you, they’d want you to relax…

7) Eat dark chocolate.

8 ) Break out the Modern Warfare 3, guys. Playing video games, sitting down or burning calories with Wii can do wondrous things for your health. The American Heart Association suggests you play Wii, but psychiatrists and psychologists have had studies showing that just playing any kind of video game helps keep your mind off of the bad stuff… which obviously is good for your stress levels and your high blood pressure.

9) Give a hug to your best friend!

10) Eat garlic? It’ll definitely keep the vampires away and the hypertension as well. The main ingredient in garlic organosulfur allicin which causes your body to make hydrogen sulfide, and when combined with the garlic’s fancy ingredient, it causes the body to relax its blood vessels… which is what you need.