If you suffer with high blood pressure, it’s easy to feel intimidated by the changes you need to make in order to improve your health. While some people may only need to work on one or two areas to reduce their blood pressure—getting more exercise or quitting smoking, for example—most of us find that we need to improve our habits in at least 3 or 4 areas. But even if you smoke, drink heavily, are overweight, stressed out, sedentary, and eat nothing but junk and processed food, that doesn’t mean you have to tackle everything all at once. Making lots of different lifestyle changes at the same time can be overwhelming. And when we feel overwhelmed, it’s easy to opt for doing nothing rather than doing something.

Start gradually and make one or two changes to begin with. Once those changes have become habit, you can tackle one or two more, and so on. For example, you may decide to start by giving up smoking—and adopting some relaxation techniques to help with the stress of quitting—then move on to losing weight or improving your diet.

Lose the all or nothing thinking. Doing something, no matter how small, is always better than doing nothing. If you’re eating healthy food during the week, for example, then resorting to takeouts at the weekends, your blood pressure and overall health will still be in better shape than if you were eating takeout every day.

Set specific goals. The more specific your goal, the easier it is to stick to. For example, instead of saying, “I’ll eat healthier and get more exercise,” try “I’ll add two servings of vegetables to my evening meal and walk for 30 minutes in my lunch hour.”

Make a plan. Be as specific in your plans as you are with your goals. If your goal is to exercise, when will you do it? If you can’t find a 30-minute window in your day, plan for two 15-minute sessions instead. If your goal is to lose weight, make a plan to cope with cravings or manage your day-to-day stress without turning to food.

Change is a process. Changing your habits and lifestyle tends to happen in stages rather than all at once. Be patient with yourself and focus on your long-term goals, even on days when you feel deflated.

Prepare for relapse and setbacks. Nobody gets it right all the time. We all cheat on our diets every now and then, skip a workout, or backslide into unhealthy habits from time to time. Don’t beat yourself up. Instead, turn the relapse into a rebound by learning from your mistake. Identify what derailed you from your lifestyle change and make a new plan.

Making changes if you have anxiety or depression

If your high blood pressure is co-occurring with a mental health problem such as depression or anxiety, it can be even tougher to find the energy and motivation to make the necessary lifestyle changes. Just thinking about exercising or preparing a healthy meal, for example, can seem overwhelming. But by focusing all your efforts on one tiny change at a time, you’ll find that you’re capable of more than you realized.

Take the first step. It could be as simple as going for a walk or downloading a meditation app or buying some nicotine patches. It can take time for lifestyle changes to register as a reduction in blood pressure—but sometimes they can improve your mood much sooner. Taking that first step is always the hardest.

Focus on small steps. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by daily life when you’re battling depression, anxiety, or another mood disorder. By taking small but positive steps each day, though, you’ll find that your energy and outlook will gradually start to improve. Once you feel happier and more positive, you’ll find it easier to forge ahead with lifestyle changes and see the results in both your blood pressure readings and your overall outlook and wellbeing.