What is normal blood pressure, and when is blood pressure considered to be high?
Blood pressure is always measured on a number of different days and when you are at rest. If several of these measurements are too high, you are said to have high blood pressure, even if only one of the two – either the systolic or the diastolic one – is high. The medical term for high blood pressure is hypertension. In adults, blood pressure is considered to be normal under a systolic value of 140 mmHg and under a diastolic value of 90 mmHg.
When taking your blood pressure for the first time, it makes sense to measure the blood pressure in both arms, because it's sometimes high on only one side. The values that are higher are always the ones used for assessing blood pressure. After that it is enough to measure the blood pressure only in the arm that produced the higher reading. A person is considered to have high blood pressure if the systolic value is over 140 mmHg, the diastolic value is over 90 mmHg, or if both are higher than these readings.
High blood pressure itself usually goes unnoticed. Only if it is extremely high can it sometimes result in symptoms like dizziness or trouble seeing. Over the long term, high blood pressure increases your risk of cardiovascular problems like heart attacks, strokes, and heart and kidney failure. So if you or your doctor think you have high blood pressure, it's important to have your blood pressure checked regularly. If the readings are repeatedly too high, there are several different ways of lowering your blood pressure and decreasing the risk of long-term health consequences.