Increasingly, people are turning to home blood pressure monitors to keep an eye on their blood pressure but how many understand what blood pressure actually means?
This article is a simple overview of blood pressure and its many facets and will hopefully help you to understand, once and for all, what is “Blood Pressure”. It has been written in plain language and a number of the more complicated details have been left out deliberately but without in my opinion, detracting from the overall explanation. I hope the reader finds it useful.
What are Blood Vessels?
The article makes reference to “blood vessels” but many people do not understand what is meant by the term. Let me first explain in really basic terms, what blood vessels are.
The blood vessels are the part of you through which blood flows through your body and there are three main types:
1. The arteries, which carry your blood away from your heart;
2. The capillaries, which enable the actual exchange of water and chemicals between the blood and your tissues (your flesh to put it crudely); and
3. Your veins, which carry your blood from your capillaries back toward your heart.
So in really basic terms, your heart pumps freshly oxygenated blood out from your heart through your arteries. Along the way, the blood is pushed off into thousands of microscopic sidings called capillaries where your body extracts the water and chemicals of which oxygen is the main constituent. The blood, now substantially depleted of oxygen and the other goodies, is then shunted into your veins to be returned to your heart where it will be replenished with the chemicals and sent on its way again.
Summarizing this, it is the arteries that take the blood out from the heart and the veins that carry it back. The pressure in the arteries is considerably greater than the pressure in your veins; usually more than ten times as much. That is why if someone is unfortunate enough to cut an artery, the blood spurts out and it can be tricky to stem the flow. Best avoided!
Blood Pressure
Blood pressure refers to the force exerted by your circulating blood on the walls of blood vessels and constitutes one of the principal vital life signs. Putting this crudely but to explain it better, it is a little like the pressure innside an auto tireP but in this case, it is not a tire, it is your artery! Pressure can be measured for your arteries, your capillaries and your veins but when we talk about “blood pressure”, we are normally talking about the pressure in your arteries, sometimes called your “arterial pressure” and that is what is measured when the doctor takes your “blood pressure”. When you switch on your home blood pressure monitor and take your pressure, it is the arterial pressure that you are measuring.
For many years and at least up until the 1980s, when electronics really started to take off and Silicon Valley became a household name, a non-invasive device called a sphygmomanometer (an instrument that provides measurement readings in accordance with the level of mercury in a column or cylindrical glass tube – and try saying it when you’ve had a couple of beers!) has been utilized to calculate the pressure of blood flow as it circulates in the body. Many medics still use these although whether that is for accuracy or old times’ sake, one cannot be certain! Certainly, there are many electronic monitors around these days capable of extreme accuracy and it is the electronic option used in surgical theatres these days. However, even though mercury is no longer used in most pressure monitoring devices, millimeters of mercury, also referred to as mmHg, continues to be the way blood pressure levels are reported.
When measuring blood pressure, there are two types that are reported. Systolic blood pressure is measured when the pressure is at its highest in the arteries of the body, and generally occurs at the beginning of the cardiac cycles; that is when your heart pumps the blood. On the other hand, diastolic pressure refers to the pressure at its lowest level, and is noted between cardiac cycles or when the heart is in a momentary resting state; that is between beats.
Pulse pressure, calculated by the difference between systolic blood pressure and diastolic pressure, is also used by medics as an indicator but for the purposes of this article and indeed for the majority who use a home blood pressure monitor purely for monitoring as opposed to medics who are diagnosing, it will not normally be relevant. Briefly then, the usual resting pulse pressure in a healthy adult in sitting position, is about 40 mmHg. The pulse pressure increases with exercise due to increased heart pumping, healthy values being up to pulse pressures of about 100 mmHg. Pulse pressure will typically return to normal within about 10 minutes in a healthy individual. Recent research suggests that a high pulse pressure is a significant risk factor for cardiac disease, so if you are concerned, then check it out with your doctor.
When a healthy adult is resting in sitting position, the average systolic blood pressure reading is 120 mmHg and the normal diastolic pressure reading would be in the range of 80 mmHg. When writing this particular pressure level, it would be shown as 120/80 mmHg and spoken as “one twenty over eighty”. While the 120/80 mmHg is considered to be average for healthy adults, readings can vary considerably based on other factors such as age, fitness and state of health. Your blood pressure will undergo natural variations from one heartbeat to another and even over the course of the day. It will also change in response to stress, nutritional factors, drugs and disease.
If your blood pressure is too high, the condition is known as hypertension. On the other hand, if your pressure levels are too low, the condition is known as hypotension. Blood pressure measurement is probably the most commonly measured parameter, second only to blood temperature.
The most valuable asset you can have is your good health and you should value it and nurture it. There is a well used but profound truism that “without your good health, you’ve got nothing” and if you have a blood pressure concern, read up on whatever information you can find. Be bold enough to take professional advice and discuss your blood pressure concerns with your medical care practitioner. Don’t be afraid to discuss any qualms or queries you may have, soak up what you have learned and come up with a plan of action for maintaining good health and a good blood pressure level.
A semi-retired professional of age 62, now with the freedom to work at occupations I really like, I write about what interests me and apply the same criteria to the sites I operate.http://www.bloodpressureconcern.com, one of my sites close to my heart, (pun unintended!) deals specifically with “Blood Pressure” issues and feedback suggested that it would be useful to explain exactly what is meant by the often misunderstood term.There are dozens of articles to help the concerned reader with fresh material appearing regularly including not least, an increasing number of Product reviews, which subscribers have been finding most useful: http://www.bloodpressureconcern.com/reviews
