Never ignore high or low blood pressure

When did you last check your blood pressure? Have you ever cared about your blood pressure readings? If your answer is no, then you can be at potential risk of imbalanced blood pressure. Maintaining blood pressure is very much essential. High blood pressure or hypertension generally develops with growing age. It can also lead to heart attack. A very strange fact is that some people experience high blood pressure without any symptoms. So they are basically unaware about their health condition. That is why, you should check it regularly.

The force that your blood wields on the walls of arteries is called blood pressure. When the arteries become rigid, the pressure builds up and your heart has to work harder to supply blood. This is the same situation like squeezing a garden hose. Our heart beats about two and a half billion times in a life span. You should not put your heart in pressure and make it work harder. Now you can imagine that how important it is to maintain blood pressure.

Hypertension is a silent killer. Become accustomed to a healthy lifestyle to be fit. Exercise regularly to open the blood vessels. It also helps in reducing weight. An overweight person is more prone to develop an imbalance in blood pressure. Also cut down the intake of sodium. Check your blood pressure regularly, especially if you are over 40 years. Blood pressure can be maintained with change in lifestyle and dietary habits.

You might be interested to know about the blood pressure readings. Systolic and diastolic readings are noted down during this process. When the heart beats and drives blood to the arteries, it is called systolic pressure. It is normally elevated.  The dropped pressure between the beats is called diastolic pressure. A cuff is placed around the arm above elbow.

The health care provider inflates it until the blood discontinues flowing. At this point, the cuff is slowly deflated and after the first sound of blood flow, systolic blood pressure is recorded. This blood flow echoes like a heartbeat. Diastolic blood pressure is recorded when this sound stops. If the diastolic blood pressure is less than 80 and systolic blood pressure is less than 120, it is considered a normal blood pressure. If the diastolic pressure is between 80 and 89 & systolic pressure is between 120 and 130, it is considered as prehypertension.  Any readings above than these numbers indicated hypertension.