What is Normal Blood Pressure?

When you go to the doctor or admitted to the hospital, one of the first things that a doctor or nurse will do is take your blood pressure. Your blood pressure is a good indicator of overall health and that is why this is a normal part of the process, whether you are in the office because you are sick or because you just need a physical. You should be glad that this is what your doctor does every time you see them, but do you even know what the numbers mean? Do you know what normal blood pressure is?

Understanding Blood Pressure

To understand normal blood pressure you must first understand what blood pressure is. Many people think that heart rate and blood pressure are the same thing, but they are not. The two are related in many ways, but the terms cannot be used interchangeably. Your heart rate is how many times your heart beats in an hour, but your blood pressure is something completely different.

Blood pressure is the pressure on the walls of the arteries in your body at any given time. There are actually two measurements that are being taken when you do take your blood pressure and those are your systolic and diastolic blood pressure measurements. The systolic blood pressure is the pressure on the walls of the arteries during the heart beat due to the force with which the heart forces the blood through the body. The diastolic blood pressure is the pressure on the walls of the arteries between heartbeats. The systolic blood pressure is usually higher due to the force of the heart beating.

When you look at your blood pressure written down the systolic is written on top of the diastolic, much like a fraction. For instance if the doctor wrote 120/80 that would mean that your systolic blood pressure and your diastolic was 80. If this was the case your doctor would tell you that your blood pressure is 120 over 80.

There are ranges of blood pressure that doctors use to categorize someone as having normal blood pressure or not. The ranges of blood pressure are:

Normal Blood Pressure: Less than 120/85 mmHg.

Pre-hypertension: Systolic range is 120-139 and the diastolic number is between 80-89mmHg

Hypertension: Readings are more than 140/90 mmHg

As you can see, the normal blood pressure is 120/80. This would be your resting blood pressure, because when you exercise your heart rate is going to be higher and when you are sleeping your blood pressure is going to be lower. When you are simply sitting down with both feet on the floor a normal blood pressure would be 120/85 or less.