How Golf Can Help Lower Your Blood Pressure
Playing golf is a great way to take a break from life’s responsibilities, get some fresh air, soak up some sunshine, and spend quality time with people. What’s not to love? What many people don’t know is that, besides being a fun pastime, golf comes with a whole host of health benefits. One of these is decreasing your blood pressure.
Golf gets your blood pumping. It gets you socializing. It also contributes to weight loss and a positive mindset. Read on to learn how all of these, besides being benefits in and of themselves, can help lower your blood pressure.
4 Ways Golf Helps To Lower Your Blood Pressure
1. Gets Your Blood Pumping
One of the best ways to lower your blood pressure is to get the blood pumping to your heart. As long as you are doing some form of physical exercise, you will increase your heart rate.
Often, when people think of golf, they don’t immediately think of strenuous physical exercise. However, playing golf actually involves a lot more exercise than one might think.
Consider this – you will typically walk around the golf course for hours. You will carry your golf bag and you will swing your golf clubs. While this exercise might be intermittent and spread over a long period, it all adds ups. A day of golf is actually quite physical! In fact, a study conducted by the Norwegian Golf Federation found that when someone plays an 18-hole round of golf, their heart rate rises to an average of 100 beats per minute over the two to five-hour game.
2. Socializing
Golf has earned its reputation for being a social sport. You’re out on the golf course for hours with other people who share your love of golf. No matter who you are, golf gives you a common ground.
It’s an opportunity to get away from the busyness of life. There’s time to chat about everything, from your swing to your child’s role in the school play. Plus, golf can build a wonderful sense of camaraderie and community between the players. It can also provide conversation opportunities and quality family time for teens and their parents or even grandparents. Furthermore, it can be the basis of lifelong friendships and can offer the perfect environment and activity to foster business ventures. This is because socializing does not have to be forced as you are spending hours together doing an activity everyone can enjoy. As a result, talking and forming connections with other players feels organic with such a relaxed backdrop and pace.
3. Positive Mindset
Golf is a well-known stress reliever. It gets you out of the house and gives you a break from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. There’s nothing quite like taking in a little fresh air and soaking up some sunshine to put you in a good mood. On top of this, the exercise will release natural endorphins which will further give your mindset the positive boost it needs to tackle a mentally challenging game like golf.
Therefore, when you add some quality time with friends to the mix, you can imagine how easily golf becomes one of the best ways to destress and put you in a great mood for spending time with others. Remember, both good and bad stress tends to increases blood pressure. So, by improving your mood and putting you in a positive mindset, golf helps decrease those stress levels which, in turn, can help decrease your blood pressure.
4. Walking & Weight Loss
Being overweight increases your risk of heart issues, including high blood pressure, among many other diseases. Luckily, playing golf can help you lose weight, or, at the very least, prevent you from gaining weight. But, the best part about it is that you’re having so much fun it doesn’t even feel like exercise!
Golf might not feel like strenuous exercise. However, all that walking, carrying of your golf clubs, and swinging really adds up to a decent workout. Case in point, one round could easily burn over 1,000 calories! Think of how much time you’ll need to spend on the treadmill to tick off 1,000 calories. Not to mention, you will obliterate those 10,000 steps per day goals.
Final Thoughts
Golf is a fantastic way to look good, feel good, and keep that blood pressure down while having fun and staying active with friends! Sometimes, it seems like everything enjoyable in life is bad for your health. While this is true for things like processed foods and too many sweets, the opposite applies to golf. It provides you with the perfect combination of physical exercise, socializing, and stress relief to lower your blood pressure while having fun. Then, to stick with it or tackle more of your golf and health-related goals, check out my affordable courses on my website that will have you lowering your score along with your blood pressure starting now!
