In order to manage your blood pressure and thereby to stay alive longer, you don’t have to become a doctor or a nurse. But you do have to wrap your mind around how your blood pressure is measured, and what the measurement numbers mean.
How Is Your Blood Pressure Measured?
First of all, ‘blood pressure’ is a fluid-mechanics concept; it’s the pressure exerted by your blood on the blood-vessel walls within your body. It varies instantaneously, according to what your heart is doing at that exact instant. It is usually stated in the units of millimeters of mercury, abbreviated as mm/Hg, since the instruments for measuring blood pressure — known as ‘manometers’ — originally were glass tubes filled with mercury. Some manometers in use today still are like that. Mercury is a heavy metallic element, #80 in the chemical Periodic Table of elements, with the very unusual property that it is liquid at ordinary comfortable-for-people room temperatures. Atmospheric pressure — ‘air pressure’ — at sea level is about 760 mm/Hg, although it can vary just a bit. People normally don’t notice atmospheric pressure, unless there’s wind.
Understanding Blood Pressure Measurement Numbers
Your heart typically beats — executes a pumping stroke — anywhere from 50 to 60 times every minute, up to 90 to 100 times every minute, when you are resting and aren’t exercising. This heartbeat frequency is called pulse rate. Your blood pressure, varying instantaneously according to what your heart is doing, is called systolic at the maximum-pumping-pressure time-point in your heartbeat cycle, and is called diastolic at the minimum-pumping-pressure time-point in your heartbeat cycle while your heart muscle is resting in between pumping-squeeze beats. Understanding your blood-pressure situation requires keeping track of both your systolic blood pressure and your diastolic blood pressure.
Blood Pressure Measurement
Your blood pressure is usually measured using an inflatable cuff around your upper arm, connected to a readable manometer. A nurse, doctor, or other health-practitioner attendant first inflates the cuff using a squeezable rubber bulb, while listening to your blood flow using a stethoscope with its bell pressed against the inside of your elbow, until blood circulation into your arm has essentially stopped. Then the cuff’s inflation is allowed to gradually decrease, while the practitioner listens to the sound of blood flow in your arm.The instrument’s reading at the first sound of returning blood flow is your systolic blood pressure; after the cuff deflates some more, this sound fades, and the reading at that point in time is your diastolic blood pressure,
Differences Between Systolic (SSS) and Diastolic (DDD) Blood Pressure
Medical practitioners will usually report your blood-pressure measurements as two numbers, separated by a ‘/’ character: SSS/DDD, where SSS is your systolic blood pressure, and DDD is your diastolic blood pressure. For example, if your blood-pressure measurement was reported to you as 115/68, that tells you that your systolic blood pressure was measured as 115 mm/Hg, and that your diastolic blood pressure was measured as 68 mm/Hg.
Differences Between Normal And Good Blood-Pressure Measurement
So what’s a ‘normal’ blood-pressure-measurement reading, and what’s a ‘good’ blood-pressure-measurement reading? Medical conventional wisdom has for years held that folks should be urged to strive for the ‘perfect’ blood-pressure-measurement reading of 120/80 mm/Hg. Recent studies suggest that a somewhat lower target is better for your body and for your life expectancy, for most people — and, that your mood and any very-recent physical exercise on your part can temporarily but strongly affect your systolic-blood-pressure reading in particular, and to a lesser extent also affect your diastolic-blood-pressure reading. Anxiety just from being in a doctor’s office, aka ‘White Coat Syndrome,’ is well-known among medical practitioners as a condition that can raise your measured blood pressure reading by more than just a little bit. For that reason, many medical professionals will repeat an office-visit blood-pressure measurement that came out worryingly too high, after allowing enough time for you and your circulatory system to calm down.
High Blood Pressure Stages
Too-high blood pressure, aka hypertension, is nowadays often considered to come in several degrees of badness:
Prehypertensive
When your systolic-blood-pressure-measurement reading is stable in the range of 120 to 139, and/or when your diastolic-blood-pressure-reading reading is stable in the range of 80 to 89, you get called Prehypertensive. You don’t yet have hypertension, but your body is apparently heading in that direction, and you may be in increased jeopardy of having a stroke or some kind of unhealthy ‘heart event.’
Stage-1 Hypertensive
When your systolic-blood-pressure-measurement reading is stable in the range of 140 to 159, and/or when your diastolic-blood-pressure-measurement reading is stable in the range of 90 to 99, you get labelled Stage-1 Hypertensive — at least, if your blood-pressure-measurement readings don’t come down some after a while. At this stage, you need to learn to measure your own blood pressure. Your medical practitioner can help you to acquire this skill. And there are now microprocessor-controlled devices, usually featuring a mechanical manometer, that are fairly simple to learn to use.
Stage-2 Hypertensive
When your systolic-blood-pressure-measurement reading is stable in the range of 160 to 179, and/or when your diastolic-blood-pressure-measurement reading is stable in the range of 100 to 109, you get labelled Stage-2 Hypertensive — and it’s high time for you to make some lifestyle changes, that may include losing that extra weight, eating healthier food, exercising more, taking some medications that your health practitioner may prescribe, and trying out CLE Holistic Health Alistrol 500-milligram gelcaps.
Hypertensive Crisis
When your systolic-blood-pressure-measurement reading is stable in the range of 180 or more, and/or when your diastolic-blood-pressure-measurement reading is stable in the range of 110 or more, you’re now in the Danger Zone — implying that you may need prompt emergency treatment, unless your blood-pressure-measurement readings come back into less-dangerous territory by themselves. At any rate, if your readings stay that high, you’re in a Hypertensive Crisis, and you need to act accordingly ASAP to get your blood-pressure readings to come back down lower.
How to Avoid High Blood-Pressure
To avoid getting on or staying on this high-blood-pressure train to health disaster, even if your readings are still fairly healthy and good, confer with your medical practitioner, and faithfully do whatever he or she tells you to do. Keep your weight reasonable, eat more healthily, exercise more, and take any prescribed medications as directed. When you’re over 50 years old, your systolic blood pressure in particular will probably start trying to creep up, and if so you’ll need more urgently to do some things to keep it within healthy limits.
Keep Your Blood Pressure Under Control With CLE Holistic Health Alistrol
High blood pressure is bad for you. It can precipitate your having a stroke, developing a circulatory-system ailment, or even having a heart attack or kidney problems. Keep your blood pressure under control.
But now there’s CLE Holistic Health Alistrol, to help you to do just that! No matter where you are on the blood-pressure-level train. you can benefit from taking Alistrol to help you to manage your blood-pressure level. Alistrol is a blend of four herbal remedies traditionally used in Indian Ayurvedic, Chinese, and Japanese medicine. CLE Holistic Health prepares Alistrol from herbs raised organically by CLE on its own farm plots, and processed using its own proprietary processes, for excellent quality control. Alistrol has no known interactions with prescription medicines, so you can keep on with whatever medicinal regime has previously been keeping you going. Alistrol is available in the form of precisely-measured 500-milligram gelcaps. Want to try some? Go for it!