Blood pressure

Blood pressure is how strong your heart pushes the blood around your body. Every time your heart beats, it pumps out blood and pushes it through your arteries, like a river pushing water through a pipe. When the doctor measures your blood pressure, he or she can tell how hard your heart is pushing and how much resistance there is in the pipes, or your arteries. The amount of pressure the blood is pushing with is called systolic blood pressure, and the amount of resistance in the arteries is called diastolic blood pressure. When your blood pressure is too high, it means your heart has to work harder to push the same amount of blood, and that can cause problems for your body.