Step 1: The first step in the treatment of hypertension is identifying the symptom (i.e., high BP).
Step 2: Getting to know the person’s lifestyle, family background.
Step 3: Identifying the stress / pressure-causing factors.
Step 4: Techniques to bring about the sense of release are prescribed next. It can be asanas for some; for others it would be pranayama; for others it can be some kind of meditation to reduce stress.
Pranayama and Savasana are important yogic methods to control the blood pressure. Pranayama (breath control), conscious respiration, savasana (here a person adopts a dead-body-like posture and starts relaxing from the toes to the upper part of the body step by step), these yogic postures can remove the stress and control blood pressure.
Yoga brings about relaxation and this removes the stress, a main cause of high blood pressure.
Yoga is both a static and dynamic exercise and improves the cardiovascular efficiency in a healthy as well as a sick person. A person who never indulges in any kind of physical activity (either dynamic or static) has a very poor cardiac efficiency.
On exercise his heart rate increases as if the same person has had physical training for six months. His heart rate will not jump but will steadily go up after a set of exercises. Extrapolating these findings to yoga which is both a static and dynamic exercise, muscle tone is created by static exercises; muscle and joints are made supple by dynamic exercises. People think that one has to run about 10 km in order to exercise.
One can sit in a room and do yoga for the muscles to be equally sufficient. With yoga one can improve the cardiovascular efficiency in a normal person and in a diseased person. But one should be cautious regarding the underlying condition. Conditions like severe heart valve obstruction calls for care and caution.