What Is The Normal Blood Pressure?

If I ask you, “What is the normal blood pressure”?, would you be able to answer that question?

No doubt, health professionals and high blood pressure patients would readily give me the right answer to that question.

If you do not belong to the above group, it’s important that you know the answer to that question. Even the people in the above group would be surprised if they are not abreast of recent information that what was considered a normal blood pressure may no longer be so.

I’m talking about high blood pressure today because I discovered that a lot of people are going online and typing that sentence which forms the headline of today’s article: “What is normal blood pressure”.

So I figured, a lot more people on my newsletter may have the same question on their minds. Moreover, as a weight watcher, it’s important that you are familiar with this concept especially as obesity and being over weight cause this health condition known as High Blood Pressure (HBP) eventually.

What Is Blood Pressure?

Before we find out what the normal blood pressure is, I want us to first understand what blood pressure is all about. 

Blood pressure is the pressure exerted on the walls of blood vessels during the heart’s contraction and relaxation. In other words, it is the pressure felt on the blood vessels when the heart is pumping blood to the various parts of the body.

Each time your heart beats, it pumps blood to the largest artery of the body, the aorta, and from there, other blood vessels receive it down to the cells of your body.

Blood pressure is categorized into two types of pressures, the Systolic pressure and the Diastolic pressure.

The Systolic pressure is the maximum force or pressure exerted on the walls of the blood vessels when the heart pumps blood, or when the heart contrasts. It is the number at the top of blood pressure readings.

The Diastolic pressure is the minimum force felt on the walls of the blood vessels as the heart relaxes before the next contraction. That is before the next pumping action or heart beat. It is the number at the bottom of the blood pressure readings.
To put it in a lay man’s understanding so you understand what blood pressure is. Let’s assume you want to water your garden. You have a hose attached to a pump. To water your garden, all you need to do is just to open your tap and the water flows through the hose to water your garden.

However, if you want the water to travel a longer distance to get further down if the hose is not long enough, you will need to open the tap more so that there would be more pressure on the hose. It is that pressure on the walls of the hose that makes the water able to travel far than when the tap is not opened to the full.

The pressure felt on the walls of the hose is similar to the pressure on the human blood vessels. Now this pressure has a normal rating and an abnormal rating. When it becomes too much (abnormal), it turns to high blood pressure.

Normal Blood Pressure for many years has been known to be 120/80.That is the Systolic is 120 and the Diastolic is 80 mmhg (millimeter mercury).

High Blood Pressure or Hypertension is 140/90.

Now on the low side of it, there are people who suffer from low blood pressure and their reading is around 90/60mmhg.

However, I came across a recent study that said that today, people that have 120/80mmhg which is considered normal are actually pre-hypertensive. To be normal, that reading should be lower. Now don’t get me wrong, I think that study is ridiculous. I have not taken my time to research further to find out reasons why these conclusion is made.

However, I feel having a blood pressure reading slightly lower than the normal 120/80mmhg is healthier and it is now recommended for individuals to use lifestyle habits to maintain this blood pressure reading.

The Condition Called High Blood Pressure

Just as I have identified above, people who have blood pressure readings in the neighbourhood of 140/90mmhg and above are considered Hypertensive or people living with High Blood Pressure.

So Why Is HBP A Problem?

It is a problem because having it  is a license to having cardiovascular disease in the nearest future, that is heart related diseases.

Now imagine this scenario.

You are filling up a balloon with air or water. When the balloon gets full, the skin becomes so strong. What happens when you try to add more air or water?

The pressure exerted on the walls or skin of the balloon becomes too much for it to bear, and it will simply burst or explode.

Now, I’m not saying your arteries are going to explode. However, inside your body, when the blood vessels receive excessive amounts of pressure, the heart will be forced to do more work, and this will become problematic overtime as the heart is not given enough time to relax between each heart beats. It becomes a fatigued heart which is constantly under pressure to work 24/7/365 days. That can be very catastrophic at the end of the day.

When the heart is subjected to this type of high pressure, for many years, the heart tends to start getting weak overtime. That is what happens to someone who is Hypertensive.

This is the very reason why people living with HBP are advised to reduce salt intake. In fact that is the first thing a doctor or any heart organisation will tell you to do if you are pre-hypertensive or if you are hypertensive.

Why Are HBP Patients Advised To Limit Salt Intake?

Many people love the taste of salt in foods. However, the presence of salt allows for more absorption of water into the body. 

For people living with HBP, they are already battling a condition, and that is excess pressure on the blood vessels of their body. When more of salt is eaten, it forces more water to be retained in the body, and remember my earlier analogy of using a hose to pump water to your garden. Increasing salt intake to absorb more water in the body is just like opening the tap more to increase the volume of water in the body and this worsens the case of a hypertensive person.

When there is too much water in the body of a HBP patient, there will be a higher amount of pressure in the arteries, bloodstreams and the overall water volume of the body will be increased thereby forcing the heart which already has an overdose of work to do, to increase that workload the more. If you ask me, that is suicidal.

For a hypertensive person, should he always rely on blood pressure medications 100% of the time to control this condition?

Firstly, the hypertensive person has to drastically reduce salt intake to about half teaspoonful per day. A normal person should take between one teaspoonful to one and half teaspoonful of salt in foods per day.

Secondly, he has to change his eating habits and eat more fruits and vegetables. This should form more than 50% of his daily meal.

Thirdly, he should get active. The body activity levels has been proven time and again to reduce blood pressure, give the heart more strength, and help you lose weight so that the heart will have lesser workload, thereby prolonging the lifespan of the individual.

Now this person should get a BP monitor and check his progress as he does this.

Fourthly, this person should control or manage his stress level. This is because repeated stressed lifestyle causes a huge increase in the pressure level of the heart and arteries and this can cause Hypertension or worsen it for those who are living with it.

Now, it’s always a better option to use a natural means to control this as drugs have long term and prolong health hazards while treating HBP.

I would always advise that you learn as much as possible on how to use natural methods to lower your blood pressure. If you lack that knowledge, the book, “How To Lower Your HBP Naturally” can be a lifesaver for many who crave this knowledge.

Use the link here to get the natural remedies to HPB and enjoy a normal life.

In closing and as a point of reference and definition, anyone who is hypertensive has a blood pressure reading of 140/90mmgh and a normal blood pressure is 120/80mmhg (Though lower reading is better)

For those who are hypertensive, using the above tips, I have outlined will help tremendously. While I will not discourage you from taking medications as directed by your doctor, it is always a better option to make an attempt through lifestyle changes because they are natural and void of life threatening side effects.

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