Yoga and Stretching Helps To Lower Blood Pressure

As a healthcare provider, prescribing exercise is an important part of ensuring patient health. However, just like any prescription, exercise is not one size fits all. In fact, some exercises can be too strenuous, especially for those who have conditions such as high blood pressure. That’s why yoga and stretching are a great choice for most patients, including those with elevated blood pressure.

Keep reading to learn more about the benefits of yoga and stretching and to find out how you can leverage automated patient education and remote patient monitoring tools to prescribe yoga and stretching to your patients.

Evidence for Yoga and Stretching Reducing Blood Pressure

A study cited in Harvard Health Publishing recently revealed that yoga and stretching can help to lower patient blood pressure. In the study, 60 individuals with high blood pressure and metabolic syndrome were separated in two groups. Both groups were to perform 30 minutes of aerobic exercise five days a week for 3 months. The difference between the two was that one group performed 15 minutes of yoga following the aerobic exercise while the other group did 15 minutes of stretching. [1]

Over the 3 months, researchers found systolic blood pressure to be lowered as much as 10 points for yoga participants, and as much as 4 points for stretching participants. [1]

Yoga and Stretching Promoting Mental Health

In addition to improving patient blood pressure, yoga and stretching can have incredible benefits to mental health. Studies show that yoga specifically, can improve patients’ mood, and decrease anxiety [2].

This can be especially helpful to those with pre-existing conditions, who are at a higher risk of mental health disorders [3]. Therefore, prescribing this type of exercise can help patients to reap the benefits of improved physicality and mental wellbeing.

How to Prescribe Yoga and Stretching Programs Digitally

Automated patient education is one of the best ways to prescribe a yoga or stretching program. Automated patient education provides your patients with patient education tools, such as online resources, video content, tasks and more, that can help you improve patient care without increasing your workload.

This technology allows patients to perform stretching or yoga exercises within the comfort of their home through your digital guidance.

Patients can take an active role in their own care during all hours of the day. Prescribing these programs can be done in a few simple clicks, making it easy for you and accessible for your patients.

BodySite’s 12 Days of Stretching Program

BodySite’s 12 Days of Stretching Program is a great program to get patients started in their journey of being active. Each day, their program will start with a daily tip. These are meant to educate your patients on certain aspects of stretching and emphasize the importance of certain details.

Your patients can take in these tips and keep them in mind while performing their stretches. Their daily tip is followed by their daily tasks that will help keep track of whether or not they have completed their daily stretches. Here is an example:

Their daily tasks are then followed by individual stretching videos and the 10 minute stretching video. Patients can choose their individual stretching videos from the suggestions listed for each day, or they can choose different ones from the Resource Tab Content. This program is also fully customizable, giving you the ability to adjust the guidance to suit your patients’ needs.

Boxed Care Solutions for Blood Pressure

BodySite’s stretching program can be paired with any of the following boxed care solution programs. Boxed care solutions include powerful connected devices such as blood pressure cuffs, connected scales, FitBit fitness trackers, and more, so that you know your patients progress and biometric data at every step. Seamless tracking and monitoring through BodySite allows you to track patient progress, and communicate with them about their plan.

If you’re not already using boxed care solutions to enhance your patient’s digital care and to generate more revenue in your practice, check out the various options, and ask us about custom branded boxes!

If you’re not currently subscribed to the BodySite platform, take advantage of our 30 Day Free Trial or check out our live preview to see all of the incredible features of the platform!

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