How Muscle-Man Conrad Almost Died of Hypertension

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I had a friend once named Conrad. His body was nothing but well-defined and bulky muscles he often bragged by taking off his shirt when he did heavy construction jobs. He was every inch a he-man.

In fact, every movement he did while mixing huge amounts of concrete manually made him look like the Greek mythology hero, Atlas, who carried the world on his shoulders, displaying awesome muscles in the process.

My friends admired him.

But he had one problem--he made it a habit to beat stress by drinking--doing it each night with his co-workers and sleeping so late.

One day, he began complaining about dizziness, headaches, pain on the nape, and weakness. After several days, he decided to see a doctor. The diagnosis shocked him--he had serious hypertension and if he had missed consulting a doctor even just one day, he would have died if he spent another day drinking till the wee hours of the night.

His blood pressure was intolerably high and a blood vessel was in danger of rupturing any moment, the doctor added. He was given prescription which he was to take immediately and would serve as his maintenance medicine.

He could hardly believe it! How could he, Mr. Muscle Man, without any sign of flab on his body, be so sick with hypertension?

And he was a given a long list of dos and don'ts and a strict diet that slowly shrank his muscles. One day, we became the same body size.

What happened to him? The culprit was stress and loneliness.

He tried to fight off stress and loneliness with vices, not with inner peace.

Inner peace is tops in real health and fitness. And it's easy to get through cheap health and fitness with middle income budget!