The Value Of Blood Pressure Monitoring And Using A Blood Pressure Chart

Alterations to our lifestyle and diet today mean that an increasing number of people suffer from high blood pressure and it is vital that we all start monitoring our blood pressure regularly. Luckily this no longer means that we have to head for the doctors office and the wide range of easy to use and reasonably inexpensive monitors available today means that we can measure our blood pressure in the comfort of our own homes. Nevertheless, whilst checking our pressure may be easy enough, understanding the resulting figures is not always so easy.

Blood pressure will vary from one person to the next and also fluctuates with things like the time of day and what we eat. Because of this we cannot say that normal blood pressure is a given set of numbers and that if you find yourself more than a given number of above or below these you need to see your doctor. What we are able to do however is to draw up a number of bands which represent varying degrees of low and high blood pressure around a set of baseline readings which apply to the vast majority of people and this is just what a blood pressure chart does.

A traditional blood chart is a graphic representation of a range of blood pressure readings below and above the norm including advice on what the bands tell you about your blood pressure.

For example, if you were to take a blood pressure reading and come up with a systolic reading of 137 and a diastolic reading of 88, this possibly will not mean a great deal to you, except that it may appear a little bit high. However, if you draw a line on a blood pressure chart between the high figure on the left of the chart and the low diastolic figure on the right of the chart you will find that this line lies in a band which is a bit above normal and that, although it is nearing the borderline for high blood pressure, it is still within an acceptable range.

Similarly, if you were to record a reading of 145 over 97 this would be seen as a mild case of hypertension. However, the chart would also indicate that this reading in isolation is not a matter for concern and could simply be the result of measuring your blood pressure early in the morning when pressure is usually slightly high or of taking a reading shortly after you have eaten something which is high in fat.

Blood pressure charts of this nature can be extremely useful for providing you with a snapshot of your pressure at any given moment but perhaps a more useful picture would be given by a daily blood pressure chart which is drawn up over a period of time.

Most modern blood pressure monitors can store your readings and these may either be printed out and plotted by hand on graph paper or may be used together with one of several widely available software packages to produce a full-color history of your blood pressure over the past few days or weeks.

Whatever method you select there is little question that having a picture of your pressure readings over time can certainly make monitoring your health very much easier.

TheBloodPressureCenter.com provides information on choosing the best blood pressure monitor and on using blood pressure charts