Things You'll Need:
- Blood pressure cuff
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Step 1
Measuring your blood pressure is easy and a fairly common practice these days. If you want to measure your own blood pressure, you can go to the drugstore or any discount store and buy a blood pressure monitor. Using it is very simple. Wrap it around your wrist and push a button. It will give you a reading on the monitor and you will know what your blood pressure is. When you go to the doctor's office a more common way of measuring your blood pressure is with a blood pressure cuff. The nurse will wrap the cuff around your upper arm. Air is squeezed into the cuff to tighten it. Then the nurse or doctor listens to your blood flow with a stethoscope while watching a pressure gauge. Blood pressure is expressed as two numbers separated by a slash. For example, your blood pressure reading could look something like this: 120/80. The first number is the systolic pressure. It is the pressure in your arteries when your heart squeezes. The second number is the diastolic pressure. It is the force of your blood in between heart beats.
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Step 2
Knowing and understanding your blood pressure could save your life. Your blood vessels are not as tough as you may think. They can be damaged by blood flowing through them at too high a pressure. Your body organs can be damaged also. As a result, high blood pressure can play a role in having a stroke, heart attack, eye disease, and kidney failure. Heart disease is much more common in people with high blood pressure. So it is extra important to keep your blood pressure under control.High blood pressure is also called hypertension. Both numbers are important in blood pressure. A high systolic pressure can damage blood vessels. So can a high diastolic pressure. High blood pressure often has no symptoms. You may feel fine even though high blood pressure is damaging the blood vessels. So it is important to lower of blood pressure that is too high whether or not to have symptoms. Blood pressure below 120/80 is considered good. Your doctor can tell you what your goal should be. Your doctor's office personnel should also measure your blood pressure every routine visit.
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Step 3
Improve or maintain your blood pressure by taking certain measures. Eating a healthy diet is one of the best things you can do. A diet good for blood pressure is low in fat, high in fruits, high in vegetables, high in nonfat and low-fat dairy products, and low in salt. Other helpful habits that may help your blood pressure include: not smoking, doing aerobic exercise, doing strength building exercise, losing weight if you are overweight and takings steps to cut stress from your life.
