3 ways to make checking your blood pressure more of a habit
At The Natalie Kate Moss Trust we want to Prevent the Preventable.
We firmly believe that we can prevent more tragedies from occurring from Brain Haemorrhage through educating and empowering more people to better understand why brain haemorrhages happen so that they can take back control of their own health, and life.
And we know that not all Brain Haemorrhages are preventable, but many are. (To find out more about Brain Haemorrhages, click here).
Hypertension
High blood pressure (Hypertension) is the leading cause of lifestyle related brain haemorrhage.
On average a third of people have high blood pressure but 50% of those people don’t know they have high blood pressure!!
But, unfortunately hypertension usually causes no symptoms, leading to no management of it and so over time creates severe damage to your arteries, heart, and brain and thereafter it can cause a multitude of health complications, including brain haemorrhages, strokes, heart attacks and many more and is the underlying cause of 10 million deaths per year.
Often hypertension, is viewed as an ‘Old Person’s Problem’, but it affects all ages. In a report from the ONS, they show that the age group 16-35 has the highest percentage of undiagnosed cases of high blood pressure proportionally to the number of cases.
Moreover they show that a large percentage of people who have undiagnosed hypertension would self diagnose themselves as being in good health, not be obese or smoke, and it is this ‘self diagnosis’ which is a contributing factor to why they may not be checking their blood pressure.
However by not checking their blood pressure they are putting themselves at significant risks of a brain haemorrhage or other major health complications. This is why it is important for everyone to check their blood pressure, because by checking it you are in a position when you can actively, and correctly, manage it.
But we know that there are a significant number of people who have un-diagnosed hypertension for reasons such as (but not limited to):
They are unaware of the risks and importance of managing blood pressure.
They think they are ‘too young’ to have high blood pressure.
They think that they won’t have high blood pressure because they are ‘fit and healthy’.
They don’t have regular access to a monitor to check their blood pressure.
They simply forget to check it, it is not a part of their routine.
Therefore, as a charity we are on a mission to support you overcome some of these barrier, to help you to check your blood pressure more often and therefore better manage it better, and ultimately ‘Prevent the Preventable’.
So, in today’s blog we wanted to provide you with some practical tips on how to make checking your blood pressure more of a habit.
1/ Get easy access to a machine
The majority of people we speak to would only get their blood pressure checked when they go to see their GP but repeatedly setting up a GP appointment is not practical.
And whilst you can also get your blood pressure checked at most local pharmacy’s or Tesco Pharmacy (Head to the store locator on our Prevention page to find your nearest Tesco Pharmacy), you still have to make an effort to head out to a pharmacy every few weeks to check your blood pressure and practically this would be hard to keep us and maintain as a habit.
The easier the access you have to a machine, the more likely you are to create a better habit of checking your blood pressure more often and this is why we would recommend purchasing your own blood pressure monitor.
Moreover by having your own blood pressure monitor, you will:
Check your blood pressure more often. A blood pressure reading is a snap shot in time, and by checking your blood pressure more often you have a clearer picture of what your blood pressure is over time. Checking your blood pressure infrequently may give you a false indication of your blood pressure (i.e. it could be raised in that moment for a number of reasons, but overall you may have normal blood pressure).
It removes the potential of ‘White Coat Syndrome’: This is the term for when you get a high blood pressure reading in a doctor's office and a normal reading at home due to the anxiety of being around doctors in white coats can make your blood pressure rise.
We would recommend OMRON monitors as they are The No. 1 recommended brand by cardiologists.
2/ Put it in your diary
We put so many other important (and even not so important) appointments in our diary and this one could’t be more important.
By adding this 1 minute activity to your diary, it will remind you to regularly check your blood pressure and ultimately support you to ‘Prevent the Preventable’.
If you find you do have high blood pressure, there are steps you can take to manage it in order to prevent any complications. If you are worried about your blood pressure at any point, please do see you GP ASAP.
3/ Stack it onto another habit
A great way to build any habit is called ‘Habit Stacking’. Simple ‘stack’ your new habits onto a habit you already have. E.g. Looking to take a new vitamin, stack it onto the habit you have of brushing your teeth every morning.
In this instance, create the new habit of checking your blood pressure by stacking it onto a habit you already do every few weeks. That could be checking your boobs, doing your monthly accounts etc. Whatever habits you already have, utilise them to build this new, potentially life saving habit.
Remember by checking your blood pressure then you can manage your blood pressure.
If you are worried about your blood pressure at any point, please do see you GP ASAP.
#PREVENTTHEPREVENTABLE
To find out more about Preventing Brain Haemorrhages and managing your blood pressure click here.
As we aim to prevent as many brain haemorrhages from happening as possible, it is vital to find better treatments to improve survival rates for those we can’t prevent.
By donating a little as the price of a coffee today (£3), you can directly support ground breaking research at The University of Manchester to improve this treatment and stop 3 million lives being lost every year as a result of a brain haemorrhage.