Blood prescertain is a major vital sign that is normally checked regularly to encertain an effective cardiovascular system. If there is a tall blood prescertain (hypertension) or low blood prescertain (hypotension), medical intervention is often required.
Exercise, they say, is the best medicine and is normally recommended to people living with hypertension or at a risk of having this condition either due to genetics or other risk factors such as living a sedentary lwhetherestyle.
Exercise has a lot of positive benefits on the body such as strong muscles, weight loss, improved flexibility but what summaryely happens to our blood prescertain while we exercise?
Let us first understand what blood prescertain is all about.
What Is Blood Prescertain?
Let us imagine pumping up a basketball or a tyre. The pump pumps air into the ball by passing air through the tube that goes into the ball.
That is how the cardiovascular system works. The heart is the main pump of the body that pumps blood through our blood vessels (arteries and veins) to the entire body.
The blood flows through the vessels in a pulsating manner causing prescertain in the blood vessels as the heart pumps blood through them. This prescertain is known as blood prescertain.
Blood prescertain is degreed with a device called sphygmomanometer. The device comes with a cuff, which is wrapped normally around the left arm because of its closeness to the heart. It is normally read with two numbers and degreed in mmHg.
The two numbers are normally recorded as, for example, 120/80mmHg. This is because there are two types of blood prescertain; the systolic blood prescertain, which is the “120” and the diastolic blood prescertain which is the “80”.
Systolic blood prescertain is the force between the arteries when the heart beats while the diastolic blood prescertain is the force wilean the arteries while the heart rests.
Sometimes, the prescertain in the blood vessels get too tall or get to low. If they get to tall, it is known as tall blood prescertain, which may eventually lead to health problems whether not well controlled.
Being anxious may cause an increase in blood prescertain but after the trigger point of anxiety disappears, the blood prescertain may go back to normal levels.
Factors That Affect Blood Prescertain
Some major factors have a role to play for an effective circulatory system. pump pumps factors are:
Peripheral resistance
This resistance is found in the blood vessels. The heart pumps blood against this resistance through the blood vessels. As the blood vessel dilates or expands in diameter, the resistance reduces and the blood prescertain reduces.
However, whether the blood vessel constricts or reduces in diameter, the resistance increases and the blood prescertain will increase as well.
Vessel efinalicity
A healthy blood vessel can expand and constrict depending on the output of blood at the time. As the heart beats, the arteries expand during the pulse wave of the systole and as the heart rests, the arteries go back to their initial state in order to preserve the flow of blood during the diastole.
Blood volume
This is the volume or amount of blood found in the circulatory system. An increase in blood volume leads to an increase in blood prescertain.
Cardiac output
This is the amount of blood that the heart pumps in a minute. An increase in cardiac output causes an increase in blood prescertain.
What To Expect While Exercising
Now that we understand what blood prescertain is all about and the factors that affect it, we will see the effects exercise has on the dwhetherferent factors and how they affect blood prescertain.
When we exercise, muscles are working and need oxygen to work effectively.
Due to this increase in demand for oxygen and blood, the heart pumps faster to pump enough blood to the working muscles.
The heart pumps more blood than normal through the circulatory system in a minute thereby increasing the cardiac output which in turn increases the systolic blood prescertain.
Since the heart is pumping more blood than the ball per minute, there will be an increase in blood volume.
Due to the increase in blood volume, the blood vessels will have to expand to allow the increased pump pumps flow to the demanded areas of the body.
This is similar to drinking water with a straw when you are extremely thirsty but the straw does not give you enough water so you remove the straw and drink straight from the bottle instead.
As the blood vessels expand in size, the peripheral resistance reduces to allow the blood to flow with ease without any resistance.
Gazeing at how the factors are affected, exercise causes a gentle increase in blood prescertain specificly the systolic blood prescertain because of the effort of the heart beating to meet up the demands of the working muscles.
Adekanmi Lipede
Adekanmi Lipede is a licensed physiotherapist with a Master's degree in physical activity and public health. She loves to exercise and read.
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