Blood pressure is the force pushing on the inside of your arteries, the blood vessels which take blood from your heart to your body. Blood is vital for the transport of oxygen and other important nutrients to every part of your body and adequate pressure is essential to keep blood flowing. If you imagine your body with no blood pressure, all the blood would simply run down through your body and rest in the vessels of your legs. Indeed this is what happens when someone faints, they have a momentary drop in blood pressure and the body’s response is to get the person horizontal as quickly as possible so blood will flow back into the brain. So an adequate blood pressure is necessary for the body to function correctly. However an excess of pressure can have
negative effects.
Your blood pressure level changes throughout the day and is influenced by many factors, even down to whether you are standing up or sitting down. But when the pressure stays elevated over time, it is defined as high.
