Lowering cholesterol levels in your body by natural methods is usually less expensive, not to mention much less stressful on your body.

While there’s plenty of medical advice that indicates the statin family of drugs are highly effective in lowering your levels of cholesterol, there are many people who are seeking alternative non-medical solutions to lowering high cholesterol. These people include the not so old who wish to make lifestyle changes now rather than face 30 or more years on medications. Why take the chance of suffering unacceptable side effects from statin medications, such as erectile dysfunction in males and abdominal pain and muscle soreness in both sexes? Also, the long-term use of these drugs could lead to as yet unknown problems. So, eat a healthy diet low in saturated fats and combine this with the following natural health tips.

Natural Health Tip No 1:
Regular exercise. Start a program of regular exercise that will lead to achieving a healthy body weight. This means exercising three or four times a week to a level where your heart rate is raised to an acceptable rate for your age. Walking, swimming and cycling are all good activities that don’t place unnecessary strain on your body. Be sure to warm up with at least five minutes of muscle-stretching exercises beforehand. Raised oxygen levels also help your body organs maintain their vitality and firms and tones your muscles.

Natural Health Tip No 2:
Plan your menus. Think about the healthy foods you like and plan your meals a week in advance to coincide with food shopping day. This saves you having to make compromises to your diet that involve the wrong foods. It also means you’ll have plenty of low fat products on hand that may be hard to find at the corner store.

Natural Health Tip No 3:
Smart cooking techniques. Avoid bad cooking techniques such as deep-frying and try to prepare your foods by simmering, dry baking, steaming or using Asian stir-fry techniques. Even microwaving can allow foods to cook in their natural juices and retain their nutrients. And be sure to eat lots of raw foods, especially fruit and vegetables.

Natural Health Tip No 4:
Take your supplements. Supplements such as Omega-3, inositol hexaniacinate, pantethine, and guggulipid can be effective in lowering cholesterol. Supplements for lowering cholesterol should be used as a part of an overall plan that includes diet and lifestyle changes.

Natural Health Tip No 5:
Clean out your system. Plan an occasional system cleanout day where you consume only fruit and vegetables. The high water content of fruit and vegetables facilitates the spread of their valuable nutrients through your body and helps flush out the wastes that have built up from eating the wrong foods.

Natural Health Tip No 6:
Few realise that eating sweets and other high glycemic foods increase triglycerides and cholesterol production. These foods are also addictive. Once you eliminate them, you’ll find that fruits, vegetables and whole grains actually taste sweet.

Natural Health Tip No 7:
Cut out caffeine and alcohol – drink water. Both caffeine and alcohol have been shown to elevate cholesterol. So it’s best to switch to pure water and, at the very least, follow the “no more than one a day” rule.

Natural Health Tip No 8:
Don’t smoke or use tobacco in any form. Smoking damages blood vessels, contributes to hardening of the arteries and is a major health risk for heart disease, stroke and other degenerative diseases.

Natural Health Tip No 9:
Relax. Stress and ill health go hand-in-hand. While you can’t and shouldn’t eliminate stress, you can learn to control it by meditation and relaxation techniques and by regular exercise. If you are currently on prescription drugs, don’t stop them without consulting your doctor. But follow these natural health tips and you should be able to lower your cholesterol. In any case, you will certainly be much fitter and healthier.

One note you should be aware of, though — if you are on prescription medications, approach these natural methods slowly. This will give your body time to adjust, and will give your doctor a chance to lower your prescriptions more gradually (to help prevent any symptoms of withdrawal that may arise).