New blood pressure numbers just dropped

Today on Dad Strength

• New blood pressure numbers just dropped

• Is it wrong to focus on pride as a parent?

• Teachers are not ok

• A book, a quote, a dad joke

New blood pressure numbers just dropped

First question: do you know your blood pressure?

Second question: do you know how to change it?

Last week, Hypertension Canada updated its guidelines — bringing Canada up to speed with European, U.S., and WHO standards. However, shifting the standard for risk from a diastolic of 140 mm Hg to 130 means that millions of Canadians may find themselves now considered to be at-risk.

Here are the big levers for change:

Salt reduction
Aim for under five grams of salt (2300 milligrams of sodium) per day. Reducing your consumption of ultra-processed and restaurant foods is the simplest way to do this. According to the WHO, “In adults ≥18 years of age, a modest reduction in salt intake for ≥4 weeks led to a reduction of 4 mm Hg in systolic blood pressure and 2 mmHg in diastolic blood pressure.”

Alcohol reduction
If you put away more than two drinks per day, halving your consumption  is perhaps the quickest and most dramatic way to drop your blood pressure, with an average drop of 5.5 mm HG.

Exercise and daily movement
30-60 minutes of daily aerobic exercise (moderate intensity) has been shown to reduce systolic blood pressure by nearly 4 mm HG.

If you’re in Toronto, I know a place.

Stress reduction
Mindfulness meditation has been shown to reduce systolic blood pressure by 4-5 mm HG. I’ll also remind you that mindfulness can be beautifully layered onto just about any kind of physical movement, from walking to kettlebell complexes.

I’ve also been thinking about the skills of uncoupling mental stress from the way it shows up in your body — tension (including vasoconstriction) is a big part of that. This is different from de-stressing or Zenning out in its more standard forms because it doesn’t reduce your cognitive perception of stress… just your response to it.

Sleep consistency, quality and duration
Poor sleep quality and duration are linked to higher blood pressure — and a 9-17% higher risk of hypertension. Even a 30-minute fluctuation in bedtime can mess with you.

Weight control
There is a relationship between weight loss and blood pressure. However, rather than point at specific numbers, I want to draw your attention to timeline, where more modest weight loss maintained over the long-term has the greatest potential for reduction of risk. So, simply following the above guidelines while avoiding a caloric surplus (averaged over weeks and months) will do most of the work for you.

What about medication?
There’s always a concern that this kind of change is rent-seeking by Big Pharma. And yes, that’s the problem of mixing health with for-profit enterprises… but that’s a much bigger discussion. To their credit, Hypertension Canada is advocating for lifestyle change if you’re in that at-risk zone of 130-139 mm Hg. Yup.

What if your BP is higher and/or you just aren’t ready to change your lifestyle? Well, that’s what medication is for. I don’t really care for moralizing about what other people are supposed to do or whether they deserve to have their medical needs met if they’re not meeting someone else’s standards for health or self-care.

The further upstream you can get of a problem, the easier it is to fix — and the less dramatic we have to be about how we fix it. That being said, if you are at risk for heart disease because of high blood pressure, my advice as a health and fitness guy (and definitely not a doctor) comes in two steps:

1. Get the job done

2. Get pickier about how you get the job done

Putting off medical intervention because of some kind of made-up moral framework might tick some kind of internal box but maybe your actual, measurable health markers should take priority here.

Is it wrong to focus on pride as a parent?

In Three Power Statements for Parents, I offer ways to take key statements and rephrase them in ways that are deeply authentic and impactful. One of them is the simple but powerful, “I’m proud of you.” One of our Community Edition members offered this thoughtful response:

“I worry the pride sits very close to performance-based love.”

It’s a great concern. Here, he’s addressing the complex but important idea of extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation. Only one of those lasts when nobody’s looking. So, when we express this as parents, what are we saying?

The answer depends on context (funny thing about that). And if we are using their desire to make us proud as a way to control behaviour, that’s something to think about. On the other hand, is it something they know and feel in their hearts outside of specific performance? Is it simply part of life? That’s different.

In reference to a certain type of achievement, he shared something that felt truer and more personal:

“For me, respect and admiration feel a bit closer to home and nothing seems to beat the feeling of presence and joy in the moment. ‘Yes, we did it. We did the dang thing!’”

I love this so much. But mostly because it takes a universal feeling and phrases it in a way that lands correctly — in the brain and in the heart.

Get Three Power Statements for Parents

As a parent, you want to have a great feedback system for your kids: something that helps them build skills and feel good about the process. And the higher your expectations, the more support you’ll need to provide. Developmental psychologist, David Yeager, describes this in his book, 10 to 25, as the Mentor persona.

Based on this, I’ve crafted 3 power statements — and how to make them authentically your own. Words matter but how you say them matters more.

You get these (and more) when you sign up to the Community Edition of Dad Strength ($5/month). Cancel at any time.

Teachers are not ok

404 Media shared this story, capturing statements from several teachers about how they feel about student use of AI. One quote:

“I teach 18 year olds who range in reading levels from preschool to college, but the majority of them are in the lower half that range. I am devastated by what AI and social media have done to them. My kids don’t think anymore. They don’t have interests. Literally, when I ask them what they’re interested in, so many of them can’t name anything for me. Even my smartest kids insist that ChatGPT is good “when used correctly.” I ask them, “How does one use it correctly then?” They can’t answer the question.”

This is sobering. But, as with blood pressure, the further upstream we get, the less we need to panic. So, let’s take a breath and think about this.

I think the way out is philosophical, not punitive. It is going to be increasingly difficult for teachers to monitor this and the idea of heaping even more work onto their plates cannot possibly be part of a good-faith argument. So, where does that leave us as parents?

We have to clarify between getting the job done and a genuine interest in something. School is both. It certainly should be. But we have to help our kids create a world where there is value in inefficiency… in wandering. In finding out what is interesting to you before worrying about your performance in that area. And for all the achievement-chasing we might encourage in our kids, I wonder if we also have to encourage our kids to not achieve. To meander and have room to be bad at things. And to love those things for their own sake.

What I’m reading/watching:

The Digital Detective
Cybersecurity expert, digital forensics investigator and educator Tom Arnold was caught off-guard when his grandson was approached by a stranger on Roblox. That prompted him to write The Digital Detective.

The story is sort of hard-boiled teen noir, so there is violence and more mature themes. However, there’s also a wealth of description when it comes to legitimate cybersecurity tools and processes. Arnold also never talks down to his readers. So, if you have a budding white-hat hacker, you may want to check this out.

Are boys more sensitive than girls?

Did this influencer just ruin his kids' relationship with food?

The worst song ever (warning: this is quite possibly true)

A quote

A dad joke

A priest, a pastor, and a rabbit walk into a blood donation centre.

The nurse asks the rabbit, “What’s your blood type?”

The rabbit says, “I’m probably a type-o.”

Take care of yourself, man!

Geoff Girvitz
Father, founder, physical culturist
dadstrength.com

Feedback on today’s edition of Dad Strength?