Can you define just what blood pressure is, and, how it works?
Blood pressure is the force of blood pushing against the walls of your arteries as it circulates thru your body.
What influences your blood pressure?
- Heart Dynamics
- Heart Contraction – when your heart pumps the blood thru the body, it increases the pressure of in order to move the blood.
- Systolic Blood Pressure – pressure of blood when the heart pumpsHeart Relaxation – after your heart pumps, it leaves a chamber with a much lower concentration of blood. This emptiness causes the blood pressure to be lower. As the blood is returned into the heart’s right atrium, from the lungs, the blood pressure slowly increases. This increase in pressure causes a stretching of the heart muscles, which eventually lead the atria to contract, pushing blood into the right ventricle.
- Diastolic Blood Pressure – pressure of blood when heart is relaxed.
3. Vasoconstriction – when the arteries close, this causes an increase in blood pressure.
4. Vasodilation – when the arteries open, this causes the blood pressure to lower.
5. External Influences –
A. Volume
B. Hormonal
C. Other