Cold weather can make hypertension worse. TCM diet, herbs and accupressure can help over time - but if your blood pressure is high, do not stop taking your Western meds.

Solids expand in the heat and contract in the cold. The same applies to veins and arteries. The heart pumps harder to move blood through narrower blood vessels. So you should pay attention to your blood pressure in cold weather, especially if you have high blood pressure, hypertension.

Hypertension is clearly defined in Western medicine.

Normal is less than 120/80mmHg (millimeters of mercury); pre-hypertension is 120-139/80-90; stage one hypertension is 140-159/90-99. Stage two is higher. Hypertension requires medical attention, possibly medication.

The term high blood pressure is not found in traditional Chinese medicine, as the concept is relatively new.

Yet Chinese doctors have been treating hypertension as long as Western medics - but they treat the symptoms and resulting medical problems caused by insufficient blood flow to the brain and other organs.

These include dizziness, headache, fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pains, irregular heart beat, vision problems, and so on.

Hypertension contributes to hardening of the arteries and to heart failure.

Early hypertension or pre-hypertension often has no symptoms.

As in the case of other conditions and disease, TCM regards unbalanced yin and yang energy as the main cause of hypertension.