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lowest pressure is the diastolic blood pressure, and represents the
pressure in the artery when the heart is at rest. Both the systolic and
the diastolic pressure are necessary for a physician to evaluate the
status of a patient’s blood pressure.
Many factors such as physical activity, anxiety or the time of day, can
influence your blood pressure. Blood pressure is typically low in the
mornings and increases from the afternoon to the evening. It is on
average lower in the summer and higher in the winter.
Why is it useful to measure blood pressure at home?
Having one’s blood pressure measured by a doctor in a hospital or
a clinic, is often associated with a phenomenon called “White Coat
Hypertension” where the patient becomes nervous or anxious, thus
raising his blood pressure. There are also numerous other factors that
might cause your blood pressure to be raised at a specific time of day.
This is why medical practitioners recommend home monitoring as it
is important to get readings of blood pressure during different times
of the day to really get an idea of your real blood pressure.
Medical practitioners generally recommend the “Rule of 3”, where
you are encouraged to take your blood pressure three times in a row
(at 3 ~ 5 minute interval), three times a day for three days. After three
days you can average all the results and this will give you an accurate
idea of what your blood pressure really is.
A. WHO blood pressure classifications:
Standards for assessment
of high or low blood pressure without regard to age, have been es
-
tablished by the World Health Organization (WHO), as shown in the
chart.
