High blood pressure itself usually goes unnoticed. A person is considered to have high blood pressure if the systolic value is over 140 mmHg, the diastolic value is over 90 mmHg, or if both are higher than these readings. After that it is enough to measure the blood pressure only in the arm that produced the higher reading. The values that are higher are always the ones used for assessing blood pressure. When taking your blood pressure for the first time, it makes sense to measure the blood pressure in both arms, because it's sometimes high on only one side.

In adults, blood pressure is considered to be normal under a systolic value of 140 mmHg and under a diastolic value of 90 mmHg. The medical term for high blood pressure is hypertension. If several of these measurements are too high, you are said to have high blood pressure, even if only one of the two – either the systolic or the diastolic one – is high. What is normal blood pressure, and when is blood pressure considered to be high?īlood pressure is always measured on a number of different days and when you are at rest.