Blood pressure is an important measurement for both you and your medical team. It’s a measurement of how hard your heart is working to get blood throughout your body, and there IS a sweet spot.
When looking at blood pressure numbers, you’ll notice that there are two of them. There is a top number and a bottom number. The top number is called the systolic blood pressure and the bottom number is called the diastolic blood pressure. Together, they are a useful tool to know and understand where your health is in that moment. So what do these numbers mean?
The Systolic number, the top reading, tells us just how hard the heart has to pump in order to get blood from one place in the body to another place. It tells just how much force it takes to keep things moving. The bottom reading, the Diastolic number, tells you how much your heart relaxes in between beats. So between these two numbers, you know how hard the heart is pumping and how much it is relaxing.
As you may know, the heart starts to pump long before you are born. Within the first 2-3 weeks after conception, there is a tiny heart beating as an embryo is forming. This means that your heart started to work 9 months before you took your first breath. This is why it’s imperative to make sure that your heart is working as efficiently as possible and resting in between beats the way its supposed to. The more it over-works, the more opportunity there is for the heart to wear itself out and get damaged throughout your life. Just like any other organ, you don’t want your heart to become damaged to the point that it can’t repair itself.
So, what should it be optimally?
Optimal blood pressure ranges are said to be below 120/80 (this is read 120 over 80, or 120 mm mercury over 80 mm mercury). Anything above this on either the systolic OR the diastolic OR a combination of both of them and you may be setting yourself up for hypertension / high blood pressure.
What is high blood pressure?
High blood pressure is the sustained increase of any one of these numbers. Your heart rate and blood pressure will fluctuate throughout a day depending on the needs of your body. That’s natural and necessary. The thing is that your blood pressure should go back to normal once that need is gone. When the pressure remains elevated even in times in which you are relatively relaxed, it is a signal that something in the body is in distress or out of balance. Again, having your blood pressure increase for a short time is not a problem. The problem comes when it REMAINS high for an extended length of time.
What can be done about it?
There are several reasons that the systolic and diastolic numbers can increase. Because there is not just one cause, there is not just one way to help it improve. There ARE some natural ways to help bring both numbers back into the normal range. In the next few posts, I’ll discuss some of the reasons blood pressure may be elevated and what you can do about it.
In the meantime,
if your blood pressure is high and you’d like some help creating a plan to lower your blood pressure safely and naturally, let’s talk about it. You can schedule a COMPLETELY FREE 15 minute consultation with me to explore your options. www.DrTursha.com/Free15 to book your consultation.
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