Thought leadership in heart health.

A patient once told The Right Technique That Most People Get Wrong
me, slightly frustrated: “Doctor, I’ve checked my BP five times today. Every time it’s different. I think this machine is faulty.” When I asked him how he was measuring it, he said: Once immediately after climbing stairs, once while talking on the phone, once standing, once after Coffee and once lying down
The machine was not the problem. The method was. And this is something I see almost every day. People invest in a good blood pressure monitor — but no one really teaches them how to use it correctly. As a result, they end up with confusing readings, unnecessary anxiety, and sometimes even wrong treatment decisions.

One of the most common questions patients ask in clinic sounds deceptively simple “Doctor, what is normal blood pressure?” Most people already expect the answer. Somewhere along the way they have heard the familiar number — 120 over 80. But after years of treating patients with hypertension, I have learned that the real answer is more nuanced than a single pair of numbers. Blood pressure is not a fixed label that permanently defines a person as “normal” or “abnormal.” It is a dynamic physiological signal, constantly adjusting to the needs of the body. And understanding this difference is the key to interpreting blood pressure correctly.