What is blood pressure and what is it used to determine?

What is high blood pressure? the other answer is Wrong

>>>Blood pressure is the force of blood pushing against the "WALLS" of your arteries.<<<<

"120/80 or below is Normal" 124/80 is high 122/84 is high 140/90 is high and OVER the LONG term can be dangerous

High blood pressure means that your blood is moving through your arteries with a pressure higher than normal. The higher the pressure inside your arteries, the higher your blood pressure numbers may be.

Silent and serious

Most of the time, high blood pressure is “silent”—which means you may feel no symptoms. That’s why people can have high blood pressure and not even know it. In fact, 1 in 3 Americans has high blood pressure. It's a common health problem. And it’s important to know that uncontrolled high blood pressure can lead to other serious health problems.

High blood pressure can be controlled

Blood pressure is the measurement of the force created by the pumping of the heart as it sends blood through the blood vessels of the body. The blood vessels which are called arteries are the pathways that send blood to all of the organs of the body. When the heart pumps, it pushes blood out of the heart into the arteries. This pressure when the heart contracts is called the systolic pressure. When the heart relaxes after each contraction, the pressure inside the heart falls and valves opened to allow blood to go into the main pumping chamber (ventricles). This is called the diastolic blood pressure. A typical blood pressure might be 120/80 with the 120 representing the "systolic" pressure when the heart contracts and 80 being the "diastolic" pressure when the heart is relaxed. We measure these pressures in millimeters of mercury which is abbreviated "mmHg".

Second, many people think that they can "feel their blood pressure" but in most cases, high blood pressure is a "silent killer". Specifically, people may have headaches that they think is caused by their blood pressure and say that they can feel when their blood pressure is up. Basically the anxious feelings or pain due to the tension headache (often due to contraction of the muscles of the scalp) may cause the high blood pressure. So the high blood pressure and stress or pain may be associated but usually the blood pressure does not cause the headache (unless a blood vessel has ruptured which is usually severe and fairly dramatic and not the run of the mill headache).

means you are healthy, the numbers show the pressure the heart makes pushing the blood through your veins and arteries. medication open the passages and bring down pressure.