What range is High or Low Blood Pressure level

When your head swirls or get unexplained headache, what comes to your mind? Surely blood pressure or BP level, it can be high BP or low BP. With easy access to home BP monitors we can immediately know the blood pressure. But what is the acceptable BP level, in my personal opinion at times doctors have ignored BP level 140/90 reading and at times flagged BP level 120/80. So what is the healthy blood pressure range?

Blood Pressure Range

Normal blood pressure is less than 120/80

Elevated blood pressure is 120-129/80

High blood pressure Stage 1 – 130-139/80-89

High blood pressure Stage 2 – higher than 140/90

Critical blood pressure – higher 180/120 (immediate medical attention)

What are these numbers?

First number is called systolic pressure

It is the pressure with which blood is pumped out of heart

Second number is diastolic pressure

It is the reading in-between the heartbeats when the blood is filling inside the heart.

Why these matter and what if you have high systolic with low diastolic or low systolic with high diastolic is another long story.

So why sometimes doctors don’t bother about elevated BP levels, well BP changes through out the day depending upon the activity and it might be caused by fever or anxiety or viral infections. But any bp level more than the normal range mentioned above which persists for over a week must not be ignored. Home Blood Pressure machines are best to keep a tab on your Blood Pressure Levels.