HYPERTENSION – DESCRIPTION
Hypertension means high blood pressure and not excessive anxiety or nervous tension.
Blood pressure is the pressure of the blood inside the arteries which carry the blood from the heart to the tissues.
When the heart contracts and forces blood out into the already filled arteries, the pressure rises. This is systolic blood pressure. When the heart is at rest, the pressure inside the elastic arteries is the diastolic pressure.
The difference between the two readings is the pulse pressure. The normal range varies considerably, being low in children and young women, and tending to rise with age.
The common belief that blood pressure should be 100 plus your age is not really true.
The normal range of systolic pressure is about 100 to 145 and the diastolic 60 to 90. It normally rises with exertion, exposure to heat or cold and with emotion, and these changes are more marked in the systolic pressures.
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