Anecdotally, peoples’ blood-pressure readings — especially those for systolic blood pressure — can bounce around quite a lot according to their moods, by as much as 25 mm/Hg or even 50 mm/Hg. Readings for diastolic blood pressure are, anecdotally, a lot less volatile. Recent research seems to bear these hypotheses out.
Differences Between Systolic and Diastolic Blood Pressure
A quick review: Systolic blood pressure is the blood pressure within a person’s circulatory system during a heartbeat, whereas diastolic blood pressure is the blood pressure within a person’s circulatory system when their heart is resting in between heartbeats. The unit of measurement for blood pressure is millimeters of mercury, abbreviated mm/Hg. even when the actual ‘manometer’ measuring instrument uses a pressure sensor rather than a glass mercury-filled tube. The results of a complete blood-pressure reading are stated as SSS/DDD, where SSS is the systolic reading and DDD is the diastolic reading. A ‘normal’ reading for a healthy adult is 120/80; even lower than that may often be better.
How Does Your Mood Affect Your Blood Pressure?
There has been some formal medical research into the temporary ups and downs of blood pressure attributable to a person’s moods and current activities. As might be expected, medical-research studies have found that standing up, peeing, or pooing raises a person’s systolic blood pressure; there may also be some effect on diastolic blood pressure, but it is smaller and less clear-cut. Both systolic and diastolic readings drop when the person sits down or lies down.
Blood Pressure Peaks Can Cause a Stroke or a Heart Attack
Momentary mood can have a powerful, albeit short-term, effect. ‘White-coat syndrome’ — meaning simply becoming tense during a visit to a doctor’s office — is a blood-pressure-raising effect well-known among medical practitioners and even among older patients. Conversely, patients who currently are meditating or are undergoing acupuncture have been observed to have temporary drops in their blood-pressure readings. Becoming temporarily angry can also raise a person’s blood pressure by quite a bit — and it’s the peaks in a person’s blood pressure that put that person into greater danger of a stroke or of a heart attack. Thus, even a person whose blood pressure is normally a fine 120/80 is at serious risk, if they are temperamentally often prone to angrily ‘flying off the handle.’ Approaching work deadlines can certainly raise blood pressure, as can other life stresses; news stories often tell of very old couples who die within days, or even within hours, of each other, where the second one to die had a stress-activated stroke or heart attack.
Salt and Blood Pressure
Some researchers blame the higher blood pressure in old folks on the amount of salt in the diets of European and Japanese people, and note that the Stone-Age Yanomami people of Brazil and Venezuela have very low blood pressures. Those folks eat a lot of fruit, and not much fats. For what it’s worth, they also don’t wear a lot of clothes.
Old People Should Avoid Getting Upset
Older people living in colder places, such as Canada and much of the United States, should cultivate resilience. And they should seek to avoid getting upset by rude incompetent drivers, balky hard-to-start lawnmower and snowblower engines, nonsense-spouting politicians, noisy nocturnal partying teenage neighbors, unhelpful bureaucrats, and other not-so-charming features of modern civilized living.
Reduce Your Blood Pressure with CLE Holistic Health Alistrol
But then there’s CLE Holistic Health Alistrol, a blend of ancient herbal remedies that have been used for millennia in traditional Chinese and Indian Ayurvedic natural medicine to treat too-high blood pressure. Alistrol is available as accurately premeasured 500-milligram gelcaps. Like other CLE Holistic Health products, Alistrol is produced from organically-farmed natural herbs from CLE’s own plots of land, processed using CLE’s proprietary methods, and stringently controlled for quality at every step of the way. So, if you have blood-pressure concerns, why don’t you see if CLE Alistrol can help you to manage your blood pressure?
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/jan/08/high-blood-pressure-mark-honigsbaum