What is blood pressure?
When your heart beats, it pumps blood round your body to give it the energy and oxygen it needs. As the blood moves it pushes against the sides of the blood vessels. The strength of this pushing is your blood pressure. If your blood pressure is too high, it puts extra strain on your arteries (and your heart) and this may lead to heart attacks and strokes.
But having high blood pressure (hypertension) is not usually something that you feel or notice. The only way to know what your blood pressure is, is to haveit measured.
Blood pressure is measured in ‘millimetres of mercury’ (mmHg). When your blood pressure is measured it will be written as two numbers. For example, if your reading is 120/80mmHg, your blood pressure is ‘120 over 80’.
Systolic and diastolic arterial blood pressures are not static but undergo natural variations from one heartbeat to another and throughout the day (in a circadian rhythm). They also change in response to stress, nutritional factors, drugs, disease, exercise, and momentarily from standing up. Sometimes the variations are large. Hypertension refers to arterial pressure being abnormally high, as opposed to hypotension, when it is abnormally low. Along with body temperature, blood pressure measurements are the most commonly measured physiological parameters.
Every blood pressure reading consists of two numbers or levels. They are shown as one number on top of the other.
The first (or top) number is your systolic blood pressure. It is the highest level your blood pressure reaches when your heart beats.
The second (or bottom) number is your diastolic blood pressure. It is the lowest level your blood pressure reaches as your heart relaxes between beats.
What is blood pressure?
What is a normal blood pressure reading?
What is high blood pressure (hypertension)?
What is low blood pressure (hypotension)?
What high blood pressure can do
How lifestyle changes can lower your blood pressure
Vedic Hindu Health and Medical Astrology by Delhi Astrology Centre
