What do you do after sex?

We used to have a fag after sex. But everything changes with age. It becomes a glass of wine. Then a cup of tea. (Or more likely a quick look at your phone.) Even a nap. The other day I found myself taking my blood pressure.

My BP has been a teeny bit high lately – for reasons which might be to do with genetics, previous cancer treatment, life events or my lifestyle. The doctors call it hypertension, which makes you sound like a stress addict. They seem happy enough to simply prescribe some pills. Personally, I’d quite like to know what the actual cause is as I reckon that will help me figure out ways to lower my BP more naturally.

Certainly, different activities have different effects on hypertension. Walking helps. Watching Spurs doesn’t.

I wonder if the NHS’s hyper tense attitude to hypertension is a metaphor. Doctors are so busy, they’ve barely time to get the ancient plastic slab of a printer working for long enough to generate a prescription. We’re so busy we’ve barely time to wait for for the over-worked pharmacist to fill it. There’s certainly not enough ‘patient-contact’ time to have a proper chat about what’s going on. If everyone slowed down a bit perhaps we wouldn’t need so many hypertension scripts? Definitely a message there for us somewhere but since this is just a quick blog no time to tease it out.

Anyway, you’ll be pleased to hear that sex does indeed reduce your blood pressure and by a couple of points. True the benefit is not as great as from yoga. A yoga class can take as many as 10 points off your readings – but then a yoga class does last a full hour.

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