The last review and update: February 19, 2021.
Measuring your blood pressure can be a way to improve your mood.
There is a nice and easy to implement health and mood managing “tool”. This tool is frequent measuring of your blood pressure.
If your blood pressure is within the optimal range when you measure it, you will feel good each time you do it. Because you are taking care of your health, you are smart, you are healthy. You have a lot of reasons to feel a little bit better and to be in a better mood during your day.
Maintaining optimal blood pressure can be challenging for healthy old people and even for lifelong exercisers.
In the table below from the study by Kevin J. Gries and colleagues, 2018 (1), we can see that a surprisingly high proportion of lifelong exercisers are taking blood pressure medication. Thus, 29% of female lifelong exercisers and 36% of male lifelong exercisers in the “performance” category are on a blood pressure medication. The category “performance” includes male lifelong exercisers who practice higher-volume endurance exercise. Among male lifelong exercisers in the category “fitness”, that is, those who exercise less, the prevalence of blood pressure medication is 57%. And as much as 70% in the “old healthy” category are taking a blood pressure medication. As you can see, maintaining optimal blood pressure can be challenging for healthy old people and even for lifelong exercisers.
Some additional data describing the lifelong exercisers from the study (2) can be found in the tables and figures below.
The challenge is to know what exactly is the optimal range for blood pressure and what you can do to keep your blood pressure in the optimal range. This requires some Physiological Literacy.
Definitions and classification of blood pressure levels according to Carretero et al., 2000.
Oscar A. Carretero and colleagues in their article published in the year 2000, did a diligent job on hypertension. We, notably, have a useful table with the definitions and classification of blood pressure levels.
The role of inherited blood pressure and the additive effect of “hypertensinogenic” factors.
There is another informative piece of information from the study by Carretero et al., 2000, that you can see in the screenshot below. The role of inherited blood pressure and the additive effect of “hypertensinogenic” factors are well explained.
If you need help with understanding and improving your blood pressure and other biomarkers.
Blood pressure is an extremely important biomarker for long-term health. Blood pressure can be improved without medication in a majority of cases. If you need help with improving your blood pressure and other biomarkers, do not hesitate to get in contact with us.
Selected references:
1. Gries et al., J Appl Physiol125: 1636–1645, 2018.