Blood Pressure is the force exerted by blood flow upon the walls of arteries. This is vital to human life because circulatory blood carries nutrients and oxygen to feed our body tissues and organ. Blood delivers white blood cells and other antibodies for immunity and pick up toxic waste such as Carbon dioxide and toxins that are cleared through our liver and kidneys. Blood pressure is also referred as arterial blood pressure.

Blood Pressure Readings

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Generally, each time the heart beats and pumps blood into arteries, heart pressure is at its highest. This phenomena is “systolic pressure”. However, When the heart is at rest, between beats, blood pressure falls and this is term as “diastolic pressure”. Blood pressure is monitored for both of these levels. When the measurement of the blood pressure is done, the tip number is systolic and the bottom number is diastolic. The blood pressure varies during the day, it is less when one is rest or sleep and more when one is up or exited, active or nervous.

The blood pressure levels are identified by four readings, they lies between normal to stage 2 hypertension. The National Institutes of Health cites normal blood pressure to be below a certain level – No greater than 120 mmHg systolic and 80 mmHg diastolic.

The following are the four blood pressure categories.

CategorySystolicDiastolic
NormalLess than 120Less Than 80
Prehypertension120-13980-89
Stage 1 Hypertension140-15990-99
Stage 2 Hypertension160 or higher100 or higher
The above categories are applicable for adult and varies for children and teenagers.

 

As we have seen above, the blood pressure ranges from normal to stage 2 Hypertension. It is very much required to keep a check on your Blood pressure. There are two ways of monitoring blood pressure. Either Visit the doctor regularly for blood pressure check up or buy a home based blood pressure monitor for measuring blood pressure at home.