This blood pressure chart can help you figure out if your blood pressure is at a healthy level or if you'll need to take some steps to improve your numbers. A total blood pressure reading is determined by measuring the systolic and diastolic blood pressures.
The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association divide blood pressure into four general categories. Ideal blood pressure is categorized as normal. Increased blood pressure may be categorized as elevated, stage 1 or stage 2 depending on the specific numbers. To get an accurate blood pressure measurement, your health care provider typically considers the average of two or more blood pressure readings from three or more office visits. An accurate measurement determines what kind of treatment you may need. Here's a look at the four blood pressure categories and what they mean for you. If your systolic and diastolic readings fall into two different categories, your correct blood pressure category is the higher category. For example, if your blood pressure reading is 125/85 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), you may have stage 1 hypertension.
A blood pressure measurement over 180/120 mm Hg is called a hypertensive emergency or crisis. Seek emergency medical help for anyone with these blood pressure numbers. If you are an adult with a 10% risk of developing cardiovascular disease in the next 10 years, or if you have chronic kidney disease, diabetes or coronary artery disease, your treatment goal is typically less than 130/80 mm Hg. If you're a healthy adult age 65 or older, your treatment goal also is usually less than 130/80 mm Hg. If your blood pressure is OK, maintaining or adopting a healthy lifestyle can prevent or delay the onset of high blood pressure or other health problems. If your blood pressure is high, a healthy lifestyle — oftentimes along with medication — can help bring it under control and reduce your risk of life-threatening complications. Sign up for free, and stay up to date on research advancements, health tips and current health topics, like COVID-19, plus expertise on managing health. To provide you with the most relevant and helpful information, and understand which information is beneficial, we may combine your email and website usage information with other information we have about you. If you are a Mayo Clinic patient, this could include protected health information. If we combine this information with your protected health information, we will treat all of that information as protected health information and will only use or disclose that information as set forth in our notice of privacy practices. You may opt-out of email communications at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the e-mail. March 18, 2022
See more In-depth See also
. |