Now That's Pressure!

When was the last time you had your blood pressure checked? If you remember it being around the time that Ronald Reagan said “Mr. Gorbachiev, tear down this wall!”, I would say you have some catching up to do!

Monitoring blood pressure is something that we as human beings must keep an eye on, since hypertension (high BP) is a risk factor for heart disease. However, people seem to overlook it more frequently than a politician cheats on his wife. So allow me to drop some science on this topic about a hot three-way between a cuff, a stethoscope and your arm (okay, that probably doesn’t make sense, but I thought I would try to put a cool spin on an otherwise boring subject!):

Pre-hypertension would be defined as having a blood pressure reading of 140/90 and normal blood pressure is 120/80. So what are the numbers for? Well, the top number is referred to as systolic (maximum arterial pressure during contraction of the left ventricle) and the bottom number is called diastolic (the minimum arterial pressure during relaxation and dilatation of the ventricles of the heart when the ventricles fill with blood). If your numbers a fairly high, that means that your heart has to work extra hard to pump blood through your blood vessels because they are too restricted. How do you get those blood vessels to relax or vasodilate you ask? Simple: exercise (like you didn’t know I was going to say that)! It has been proven that resistance training and cardio can lower blood pressure to healthy levels, which means this can be a great alternative for those of you who are currently taking medications for hypertension (after consulting with your doctor of course!).

So, go get your blood pressure checked on a regular basis (at least once a month) to make sure you don’t fall into the danger zone of 140/90 and higher. Now you have a conversation piece that will make you more popular at parties than the environmentalist “green” movement sweeping the nation! Alright, people will think you are a dork and uninteresting, but at least you have some preventative steps to follow to add some more years to your life!

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