What Is Blood Pressure?
High blood pressure or hypertension can severely impact the quality of life and cause complications. Understanding what is high blood pressure is a first step to a healthy life.
Blood pressure refers to the measure of force used by the heart for pumping blood around the body. High blood pressure, or in medical terminology, hypertension is caused by the fact that the heart needs to apply greater force to pump blood to the vital organs of the body.
The reading of blood pressure is given as two figures, and it is measured in millimeters of mercury, mmHg. The two figures refer to:
- Systolic pressure which is a measure of the pressure when blood is pushed out of the heart
- Diastolic pressure which gives you an idea of the pressure when the heart is resting between beats
If your blood pressure reading is 140/90mmHg, 140mmHg is your systolic pressure, while 90mmHg is the diastolic pressure.
