High Blood Pressure Chart

A high blood pressure chart will suggest to you whether you need to be careful with your blood pressure. However, do not listen to people who say that they (or you) can feel your blood pressure rising. You will need to take an accurate measurement with a blood pressure monitor and compare the readings to a high blood pressure chart.

High Blood Pressure Chart

Unfortunately, interpreting the data from a high blood pressure chart is not as easy as you would think. Do not misunderstand me, it is easy enough to read the data itself, but not all doctors and medical personnel agree with what marks someone's blood pressure as 'high'.

When you look at the readings from a sphygmomanometer or a domestic blood pressure monitor, it gives two readings. One reading should be higher than the other, this is the systolic blood pressure and is caused by the heart pumping blood around the body. The other reading is called the diastolic blood pressure and is caused by the heart pulling blood back through the body. In other words, it is the heart closing (pumping) and opening (sucking) again.

In order to judge whether you are healthy, these figures should be compared to a so-called high blood pressure chart. This is where the contention comes in. The high blood pressure chart that came with my blood pressure monitor says that 120/80 or less is 'normal'.

But how much less, before your blood pressure is too low?

Anyway, it goes on 120-140/80-90 is 'pre-hypertension; 140-160/90-100 is hypertension stage 1 and above that is hypertension stage 2. My doctor agrees with these figures, but I have met two other qualified personnel who say that 140/90 is perfectly normal for a man of my age.

Because age and several other things can be factors when trying to interpret the systolic / diastolic blood pressures and they are not mentioned on a high blood pressure chart. Some of the factors that can influence blood pressure are:

• being in a doctor's surgery - the so-called 'white coat effect' - it can add 25-50 points to a reading
• temperature
• humidity
• restlessness
• lack of sleep
• physical exercise
• constipation
• stress
• fear
• anger
• anxiety
• food and beverage consumption
• physical condition
• time of the day

No high blood pressure chart can accurately take account for all these factors, but not all doctors agree where cause for concern should begin and not all countries agree on the standards either.

Therefore, interpreting blood pressure readings using a high blood pressure chart on your own is not easy without medical training. If you want to monitor your own progress, it is best to take your equipment with you and visit your GP.

Then you can compare results from the doctor's supa-dupa machine with yours to see whether yours is accurate or not. Then the doctor can give you a set of figures that are much more meaningful to you personally than any high blood pressure chart can provide.