Healthy Blood Pressure

Blood pressure refers to the force exerted by blood on the walls of blood vessels that take away the blood from the pumping heart. In average human heart pumps blood in to the arteries about 72 times per minute what can be felt at the wrist, neck and other point of the body as the pulse (heart rate). Blood pressure is the strongest in the aorta which is the largest artery and brings the blood to all parts of the body, while the blood pressure is the lowest in the veins that carry low-oxygenated blood back to the heart.

Blood pressure greatly varies in different blood vessels, while one's blood pressure is usually determined by the pressure in the brachial artery in the forearm. To determine one's blood pressure are measured systolic and diastolic pressures. Systolic pressure refers to the peak pressure when the ventricles (the pumping chambers of the heart) contract, while diastolic pressure is the blood pressure at its lowest point when the ventricles are relaxed. The blood pressure greatly varies from person to person but the average values for the blood pressure in healthy young adult people are up to 119 mmHg (millimeters of mercury) for systolic pressure and 79 mmHg for diastolic pressure. Few mmHg up or down are still considered normal but if the blood pressure is lower than 90/60 mmHg one is suffering from low blood pressure or hypotension. When the blood pressure is higher than 140/90 mmHg one is affected by high blood pressure of hypertension.

However, blood pressure also greatly depends from the time of day. In the morning heart beat rates are lower than in the evening and thus the blood pressure in the morning is lower than in the evening. Factors which greatly influence the blood pressure are also age, gender, race, physical activity, stress, unhealthy diet, genetic factors, and some diseases and disorders.