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How to Lower Blood Pressure with Exercise: What Actually Works

High blood pressure (HBP), also known as hypertension, is one of the most common chronic conditions, affecting nearly half of all adults. Very often, it doesn’t show any symptoms, so you might not even know you have it. But when left unchecked, it can quietly lead to serious health issues like strokes, heart attacks, and heart failure. But fear not, for there is a very silver lining! One of the most effective (and easiest) ways to manage HBP is exercise, and better yet, it’s something you can do right now. You don’t need any fancy equipment or several hours to spare – just the simple act of moving your body in whatever way you can, which can have a powerful impact on your blood pressure.

When you get moving, your heart, lungs, blood vessels, and muscles work together, triggering your body to release certain chemicals that relax and widen your blood vessels. This eases the pressure on your arterial walls, which in turn lowers your blood pressure. In fact, the benefits can last up to 24 hours after you exercise. Studies even show that staying active can lower your blood pressure by 5 to 7 mmHg—and that’s on par with what some common medications do. You can’t get much more of a ‘natural treatment’ than that!

Safely Exercising with High Blood Pressure

If you’ve been diagnosed with high blood pressure, it’s important to approach exercise with a cautious and informative approach. While physical activity can indeed be a solution to lowering blood pressure in the long run, it can still temporarily raise it during a workout.

Start safely with these general tips for all types of exercise:

  • Get medical clearance from your doctor, especially if your blood pressure is not well-controlled.
  • Avoid breath-holding or straining (like during heavy lifting), which can spike your blood pressure.
  • Warm up and cool down for at least 10 minutes to allow your heart and blood vessels to adjust gradually.
  • Stay hydrated – dehydration can lead to a rise in blood pressure, so drink plenty of water during your workout.

What the Research Shows: The Best Types of Exercise for High Blood Pressure

Research confirms that a combination of aerobic exercise, resistance training, and isometric exercises offers the most effective approach to lowering blood pressure.

  1. Aerobic Exercise
    Aerobic exercises are great for overall cardiovascular health and long-term blood pressure management. They improve your heart and lung function, helping to lower blood pressure steadily over time.
    Examples: Walking, cycling, swimming, jogging, dancing
    How to do it safely: Start with moderate intensity (enough to raise your heart rate but still allow you to speak comfortably). Aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week. Begin with shorter sessions and gradually increase as your fitness improves.
  2. Resistance Training
    Lifting moderate weights or using resistance bands strengthens muscles, increases metabolism, and helps lower blood pressure. However, be cautious with heavy lifting, as it can temporarily spike blood pressure due to exertion.
    Examples: Bodyweight exercises (push-ups, squats), resistance bands, light dumbbells, weight machines
    How to do it safely: Focus on lighter weights and higher repetitions to avoid excessive strain. Perform controlled movements and avoid holding your breath. Aim for 2–3 resistance training sessions per week, ensuring you leave a day of rest between workouts.
  3. Isometric Exercises
    Isometric exercises involve holding static positions where the muscles contract without changing length, which make them low-impact and effective at lowering blood pressure.
    Examples: Wall sits, planks, static lunges
    How to do it safely: Start with shorter durations (15–30 seconds per hold) and gradually build up. Focus on controlled, steady breathing to prevent any spikes in pressure. Keep the intensity moderate, and aim for 2–3 sessions per week.

Getting Started the Smart Way – At The Flow Space

At The Flow Space, we believe that smart training starts with deep understanding—especially when it comes to things like exercising with high blood pressure. That’s where our in-house expert, Dr. Gianlorenzo Daniele, comes in.

Dr. Daniele isn’t just a physician in Sports and Exercise Medicine – his expertise spans exercise physiology, longevity, anti-doping, and injury prevention, all grounded in years of clinical work and scientific research across the world. At The Flow Space, Dr. Daniele personally oversees a series of advanced tests that help make it possible to give you a complete picture of your own personal health and fitness needs:

  • VO₂ Max Testing – reveals how efficiently your body uses oxygen during exercise, helping us set your ideal cardio intensity.
  • Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) Testing – shows how many calories your body burns at rest, essential for effective weight and energy management.
  • ECG & Stress ECG Testing – gives a detailed look at your heart’s function both at rest and under physical stress, identifying any red flags before they become real issues.

These tools allow our doctor to provide you with individualized, medically backed training advice that takes your unique physiology into account. You’ll walk away with crystal-clear guidance on how to move, how hard to push, and how to progress safely, all while working toward lower blood pressure and better long-term health.

Real Support from Real Experts

Under the same roof as Dr. Daniele is our team of experienced physiotherapists, specialized trainers and various other specialists, who work hand-in-hand with him to ensure you’re supported every step of the way. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to optimize on your current condition, we’ll help you:

  • Exercise confidently, knowing you’re doing it safely
  • Improve steadily with ongoing assessments and progress tracking
  • Stay motivated and supported with expert coaching tailored to your lifestyle

Exercise is more than a recommendation; it’s a prescription for better heart health, and ultimately a better quality of life. And when guided by science and a team that truly understands your needs, it becomes one of the most powerful tools for managing blood pressure.

Book your consultation at The Flow Space today and let us help you take control of your health through smart, safe, and personalized movement.

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The Silent Power Hour: How Sleep and Bodywork Quietly Restore You

We often think of sleep as the reward we give ourselves at the end of a long day. But what if that story is all wrong? What if sleep isn’t the final chapter, but the opening ritual to your deepest healing? Imagine if sleep wasn’t just rest, but a sacred cleanse. A nightly ceremony where your body rebalances hormones, purifies toxins, and gives your organs the chance to breathe, repair, and begin again. At The Flow Space, everything we offer is rooted in helping the body remember how to get there. 

Through a blend of manual therapy and intuitive energy work, a holistic practitioner such as myself, Elie Azzi, can support this journey back to rest, not just to ease tension, but to reset your entire inner landscape. Because the kind of sleep that changes you, starts long before you close your eyes… 

It begins the moment your body feels safe enough to let go.

Sleep Is Not Passive – It’s Active Recovery

We spend nearly a third of our lives asleep, and for good reason. Sleep isn’t the body shutting down. It’s the body turning inward, becoming deeply alive in ways we can’t see.

When you rest, something magical happens:

  • Muscle fibers repair the wear and tear from your day
  • Hormones like cortisol, melatonin, and growth hormone get balanced
  • Your organs get a chance to detoxify and repair, clearing out toxins accumulated throughout the day
  • Your brain flushes out toxins through a self-cleaning system more powerful than any detox juice
  • Emotional stress is processed and your mood regulated
  • Your immune system resets and strengthens

If you’re training hard, dealing with a stressful work environment, navigating hormonal shifts, or simply trying to feel more connected and alive in your body again, all your efforts can be quickly sabotaged by poor sleep.

Here’s the bottom line: Modern life disrupts sleep. We live in an overstimulated world: stress, endless screens, and schedules that don’t respect our natural rhythms bombard us daily. Even when we finally get to bed, our nervous systems haven’t caught up. The lights go off, but inside, many of us remain switched “on,” stuck in fight-or-flight mode, and no one can truly rest like that.

That’s exactly where bodywork and manual therapy step in to make a real difference.

The Missing Link: How Manual Therapy Can Help You Sleep Better

Your nervous system isn’t just in your brain; it runs throughout your entire body. Chronic tension, tight fascia, stuck joints, and postural imbalances constantly send stress signals to your brain. If these signals don’t quiet down, your body struggles to shift into the parasympathetic state, also known as the “rest and digest” mode, that’s essential for deep, restorative sleep. Manual therapy and integrative bodywork offer potential remedies for just this.

At The Flow Space, I practice as a manual therapist and holistic bodyworker, combining scientific knowledge, spiritual insights, and emotional awareness to work with your whole system; nervous, fascial, muscular, and the energetic, to release long-held tension and recalibrate your body’s ability to rest. FULLY.

My approach focuses on:

  • Freeing tight fascia to restore smooth movement and ease throughout your body
  • Supporting your organs through gentle visceral manipulation to enhance detox and repair
  • Calming your nervous system by targeting key points to reduce inflammation and stress
  • Balancing your energy centers to improve circulation of life force and promote overall wellbeing

This combination helps your body feel safe, relaxed, and ready for the deep, restorative sleep it needs.

The Fascia-Sleep Connection

Fascia is the body’s invisible web, a network of connective tissue that wraps around your muscles, organs, and nerves. When it’s flexible and moving well, you feel light and free. But when fascia tightens or locks up from stress, injury, or bad posture, it drags your body. 

This tension can:

  • Keep you restless and uncomfortable, tossing and turning all night
  • Trigger flare-ups of pain that make rest nearly impossible
  • Throw your nervous system off balance, blocking true relaxation
  • Cause shallow breathing, stopping your body from fully recharging

Releasing that tension through skilled manual therapy doesn’t just improve how your body feels, it signals your nervous system that it’s safe to let go and drift into deep, healing sleep.

The result? You fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, wake up feeling refreshed, and carry less anxiety and physical stress into your day. It’s simple: when your fascia is free, your whole body relaxes, and that’s the foundation of truly restorative sleep.

How to Make the Most of Your Power Hour

While manual therapy is a powerful way to reset your body, pairing it with these simple, science-backed strategies can take your sleep, and your recovery, to the next level:

  1. Longer Exhales = Better Sleep: Breathing with longer out-breaths than in-breaths gently raises CO₂ levels, which signals safety to your nervous system. This helps slow the heart rate and calm the mind, making it easier to fall asleep.

  2. Cold Exposure… At the Right Time: While cold plunges are energizing, brief cold exposure (like a cool shower) 1–2 hours before bed can actually support deeper sleep. It helps drop your core body temperature, a natural trigger for melatonin release.

  3. Fascia Stimulation Before Bed: Light rolling or self-massage using a soft ball or fascia tool (especially on the feet, hips, or upper back) activates the parasympathetic system. It’s like sending a calming signal through your entire body

  4. Body Mapping for Sleep Signals: Spend 2 minutes scanning your body in bed, moving your awareness from head to toe. This not only helps you detect and release tension but also increases mind-body connection, making your body feel “seen” and safe to rest.

  5. Blue Light Detox: You’ve heard it before, but instead of just turning off screens, switch your lighting to amber tones or red hues 2 hours before bed. This supports melatonin production without stimulating your visual cortex.

  6. Eat Earlier, Sleep Deeper: Aim to finish your last meal 2.5–3 hours before bedtime. A calmer digestive system means your body can shift into full recovery mode instead of processing food through the night.

The Best Recovery Happens in the Dark

You can eat clean, train smart, take the right supplements… and still feel like something’s missing.

Because if your body isn’t letting go, and your nervous system is still stuck in high alert, deep healing doesn’t happen… And here at The Flow Space, we like to think that true transformation, whether physical, emotional, or energetic, begins at night.

So, if YOU really want to show up in life with a better sense of strength, clarity, and purpose, it’s time to start prioritizing yourself, and that includes your sleep.  Furthermore, if you need some help getting there, don’t overlook the power of touch, presence, and a professional who truly cares.

Your body knows how to heal, and it wants to be healed. Actually, it deserves it. You just have to give it the conditions to do so.  Visit us at The Flow Space and experience how manual therapy can help you sleep better, feel better, and reconnect with your body.

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Beneath the Surface: The Real Cost of Everyday Beauty. From the outside in, our products may be doing more harm than good.

We all want to look and feel our best. But what if the very products we trust to care for our skin, hair, and body are quietly doing harm beneath the surface – even when they appear to be doing us the most aesthetic favors?

From your favorite face cream that supposedly evens out skin tone, to the “miracle” shampoo that promises to double your hair volume, many everyday beauty and personal care products contain toxic chemicals linked to serious health issues. And while marketing may convince us these products are safe, or even essential, perhaps we should take a closer look at what we’re really putting on our bodies, for the sake of health, hormones, and long-term well-being.

The Hidden Dangers in Everyday Products

The beauty industry thrives on image and the allure of transformation. But behind many luxurious advertisements and sleek packaging lies a cocktail of chemicals that are certainly not as glamorous as they look or feel. Some of these most common offenders include:

  • Parabens

These synthetic preservatives are used to extend product shelf life, but at what cost? Parabens (like methylparaben and butylparaben) mimic estrogen in the body, leading to hormonal disruptions. They’ve been found in breast cancer tissues and are linked to fertility issues, immune suppression, and reproductive toxicity.

  • Phthalates

Often hiding under the word “fragrance,” phthalates help products stick to your skin or hair. But they’re also hormone disruptors associated with birth defects, obesity, reduced testosterone, infertility, and even cancer.

  • Synthetic Fragrances

Smelling good shouldn’t come with a health warning, but synthetic fragrances often contain hundreds of undisclosed chemicals, including carcinogens and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can trigger asthma, allergies, skin irritation, and hormonal imbalance.

  • Heavy Metals

Found in products like lipstick, eyeliner, and foundation, heavy metals such as lead, mercury, and cadmium can be absorbed through the skin or ingested over time. These toxins may accumulate in the body and have been linked to neurological damage, hormonal imbalance, and even organ toxicity. 

  • Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS)

This common foaming agent strips away natural oils, damaging the skin’s barrier, worsening dryness, and triggering inflammation. It’s also petroleum-based, making it harmful to both your body and the planet.

When Labels Aren’t the Whole Truth

When it comes to beauty and personal care products, things aren’t always as they seem. Words like “natural,” “gentle,” or even “dermatologist tested” can be misleading, and ingredient lists often leave out key details, or mention things we can’t even pronounce.

What’s more, many harmful ingredients can be hidden behind vague or scientific-sounding names, making it difficult for the average consumer to know what they’re really using. And because beauty products don’t always go through the same level of scrutiny as other health-related items, there is often more flexibility in how they are formulated and marketed.

The Cycle of Chemical Dependency

Here’s how the harmful cycle works:

  1. You use a product that promises results. 
  2. With time, you start noticing side effects: dryness, irritation, breakouts, weight gain, hormonal changes.
  3. You try something else, hoping for relief and eventual satisfaction.
  4. The new product contains the same (or worse) toxic ingredients.
  5. The cycle repeats.

So, I guess at this point, the million-dollar question is – How do I break this cycle??

Clean Beauty: Making Safer, Smarter Choices

Clean beauty is not about perfection—it’s about progress. It’s about changing to and choosing products that are safe, non-toxic, and transparent.

What to Look For:

  • No parabens or phthalates
  • No synthetic fragrances
  • No sulfates or formaldehyde
  • No undisclosed chemicals

What to Choose Instead:

When looking for safer alternatives, prioritize products that:

  • Use plant-based or naturally derived ingredients
  • Are free from synthetic fragrances, parabens, phthalates, and sulfates
  • Clearly list their full ingredient breakdown
  • Highlight biodegradable, eco-conscious, and cruelty-free formulations
  • Use gentle surfactants like coconut- or sugar-derived cleansers 

Look for brands that are transparent, prioritize wellness, and align with your personal values, whether that’s sustainability, clean chemistry, or minimalism. You don’t need a massive overhaul, just thoughtful, intentional swaps over time can make a real difference.

The Change Starts with You

Choosing clean beauty is not only a stand for your health, but for your family’s well-being, and a safer, cleaner planet. The beauty industry doesn’t have to be seen as toxic, but real change starts with awareness and action. 

At The Flow Space, to help identify how these exposures may be affecting your health, our clinic offers Organic Acids Testing (OAT) with our in-house doctor, Dr. Jennifer Kaur. This comprehensive urine test can reveal imbalances related to chemical exposure, nutrient deficiencies, and even how well your body is detoxifying. It’s a powerful tool for anyone looking to better understand the burden of heavy metals on the body, and how it affects certain physiological processes.

Your health isn’t just a number, it’s how you feel, how you move, and how you do life, every single day. At The Flow Space, our goal is to help you understand what’s actually happening in your body, so you can make changes that finally work for you and improve life overall. When you know what’s behind the struggle, you can take control in a way that actually lasts. And we’d like to make sure you never have to figure it out alone. Reach out now!

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Teamwork makes the dream work

Personal training is much more effective when you have the support of Sport Medicine, Physiotherapy, General Medicine and Nursing. These departments can offer valuable insights into your client’s needs that may fall outside any one department’s scope of practise.

Sharing information from different perspectives in a multi-disciplinary team setting all under the same roof – with the soul purpose of assisting a client in returning to an active lifetyle from various scientific input and specialisations – goes beyond simple personal training sciences and effectiveness.

I often meet clients who are keen to lose some weight, improve aesthetically while training with back, knee and shoulder pain and have had the privelege of assisting many of these clients return back to an active lifetyle and manage their pain. But my reach used to be limited in terms of blood test markers, gut biome impacts, food intolerance and inflammation effects.…..until I started training my clients at The Flow Space.

I’m now able to cater for my client’s needs with the input and expertise of all our health departments. This is where I am now seeing a long standing client of mine named Will.

I met Will around 10 years ago in a CrossFit gym where I started my coaching career in Dubai. Will was wearing his Arsenal football shirt, like he still does a decade later. He was participating in CrossFit for the social aspect of things, to gain strength and to increase his overall health. From there he joined a semi-private body transformation group we were running in JLT, as he needed assistance in lower back rehab and improve his overall movement capacity. Now 10 years since that sunny morning in the Crossfit class, Will is training to increase his knee stability due to localised arthritis, while focusing on maintaining a healthy body weight.

Will is a hard working dad in Dubai and tries his best like so many of us to juggle his health, training, lifestyle patterns while providing for his family. I make a point of making this PT session with me the most enjoyable hour of his day. We always discuss football and how this may be Arsenal’s season. We discuss how hard it is to find Oasis tickets and how we’ve been lucky to have managed a bbq in June this year. There is nothing quite like British humour with some spicy South African sarcasm to make for a colourful afternoon.

Over the past decade Will’s training has switched from Crossfit training and back rehab to knee arthritis and weight management. His training needs have changed over the years and he now needs more of a medical insight.

First we had to re-eastablish the movement paterns in all his major joint functions while not overloading the affected knee. We later incorporated a slight fuller-depth squat positions to further activate the gluteus and still maintain the most important VMO-affected angles and activities to support his knees, while also maintaining all the strength he has accumulated over the decades. Will just wants to play ball with his children and I need to give him the strength to do so. Bulletproofing his system!

It’s a challenge for any trainer to instruct any routine that is safe for arthritis cases, while still enabling enough intensity and stimulation for the benefits of strength training. There are constant adaptations, back and forth communication and checking-in with clients on a daily basis to document the effects of the training and monitor the recovery. Often the training plan needs adjustments based on very valuable input from the physio departments, and checkups and advice from the Sport medicine department.

It’s the tinkering, adaptations and progression in his training along with clear and solid communication between us that have triggered the greatest progress. There is a lot of prep work, feedback from Will and tinkering to adjust workouts based on how he feels after a long day at the office, where his next destination will be for work and what equipment they will have available at all. Constant communication, online programming and assistance along with a 5 min pre-session chat every afternoon. The importance of support and communication cannot be overestimated.

As his personal trainer, I can only do the best work when he’s in the gym with me. When he travels to Canada and England every month, things do become tricky, and this is where I need additional input as his coach. And this is where a multi-disciplinary team is so important.

I must convey my thanks to great insights from the outstanding crew at The Flow Space Clinic in Dubai Hills. With valuable input from Dr. Gian Danielle in Sport Medicine, Dr Jennifer Kaur in General Medicine and Malek Ounsi in Physiotherapy, we’ve all assisted Will in his training and recovery.

I am now able to tinker and adapt Will’s training even further to support him more.

The great communication from The Flow Space Medical department also expanded my understanding of what Will goes through during his travels and what effect irregular routines and sleeping patterns in different hotel beds he endures. The core function of a multidisciplinary team (MDT) is to bring together a group of healthcare professionals from different fields in order to determine a patient’s treatment plan.

As a strength and conditioning expert and rehab coach, I specialize mainly in 2 things: conditioning and rehab. But a client’s needs often stretch further. Some clients need additional nutrition and dietary support. Others need valuable insights from a surgeon. Will needs input from the fields of physiotherapy and osteopathy.

I’m happy to report that Will is stronger than ever, moves incredibly well, and recently spent an entire week in an all inclusive holiday on the beach playing tennis with his three children. As good a coach as you think you are, or as good as you think your coach is, the reality is that no one knows everything. The body is a wonderfully complex system, and if you have niggles, pains, health-related issues, or struggle to improve your health, you need a team to assist and advise. It’s ideal to get input from professional, like-minded people who assist you in working towards a common goal and strive to get you to your performance and health goals as quickly as possible and safely as possible.

If you are struggling with back pain or any performance-related injuries, let me know. Come and see us, and let’s get the conversation started. We have built a great support network with like-minded people who communicate very well. The more people you have on your side, the better for you.

Coach Hannes is a Strength & Conditioning Specialist, catering for all corrective exercise and Personal Training needs. He loves to train active individuals who suffer from pain, educate them on managing pain, working around the pain, and returning back to action pain free.

He holds a PHD in dad jokes and puts the ‘PERSONAL’ back into Personal Training.

Originally from South Africa, he arrived in Dubai 12 years ago with his beautiful family and all his lions.