<img style="float: left;" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2022/mar/CY-Gopinath-op_e.jpg" alt="C Y Gopinath " width="150" height="96" />He said it almost as though it were a rite of passage, like a boy becoming a man. &ldquo;Hey, the doctor said I have BP.&rdquo;
After a few moments searching for a suitable response, I said, &ldquo;Welcome to the club.&rdquo; It was only a matter of time before he&rsquo;d be wallowing in words like ACE inhibitors, systoles and diastoles, beta blockers and diuretics.
&ldquo;You have it too?&rdquo; he said, excited to find a comrade. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s your number? When did you get it?&rdquo;
My friend was only 45, a few years younger than I was. Till his visit to the cardiologist, he&rsquo;d been feeling absolutely chipper, with no inkling that he had a condition that would require medication for the rest of his life.&nbsp;
Most people think of blood pressure as something their fathers have. Not true. You&rsquo;re born with blood pressure because you&rsquo;re born with a beating heart that&rsquo;s busy pumping blood. When it squeezes, your blood pressure goes up briefly, called a systole. When it relaxes, the pressure goes down, called a diastole. A person with no blood pressure is highly likely to be stone cold dead.&nbsp;
The thing my friend had&mdash;and I would too if I were to stop my medications&mdash;is high blood pressure, or hypertension.
I was more than a little concerned because I&rsquo;m a suspicious and sceptical man with a deep distrust of big pharma. The more people are diagnosed with blood pressure, the more blood pressure medications they will sell. So when a doctor you don&rsquo;t really know that well breaks the grim news that you have hypertension and need to start medicines, nod grimly back and say, &ldquo;Let me think about this thing a bit, sir. I&rsquo;ll get back to you.&rdquo;
When I lived in Africa, I was fascinated by the Thomson&rsquo;s gazelle, and not just because its name was derived from the Arabic word for &lsquo;poem&rsquo;, ghazal. This graceful creature lives in a state of perpetual alert, poised for flight. When it senses a predator nearby, it will start &nbsp;&lsquo;slotting&rsquo;, or jumping up and down as high as 12 feet in the air, to warn the herd.
Your BP is a bit like that, ready to jump at real and imagined threats. One of these is the sight of a doctor&rsquo;s white coat, which apparently stirs a primordial fight-or-flight response. This so-called &lsquo;white coat hypertension&rsquo; is a big reason why BP readings are higher in medical settings.
Some other non-obvious reasons why your BP read may come out high&mdash;
You need to pee. Or poo-poo. Both those pressures can push your BP up, so clear your innards before you sit down.
You&rsquo;re speaking. When you talk, you&rsquo;re excited and your BP rises. Sometimes, it&rsquo;s a chatty nurse working on her bedside manner&mdash;but not helping your BP a bit. Shush her politely.
You didn&rsquo;t get a good night&rsquo;s sleep. Or you don&rsquo;t breathe well when you sleep, called apnea. Both will give you higher BP in the morning.
You checked your BP at the wrong time. Blood pressure, lowest when you&rsquo;re sleeping, usually starts rising before you wake up and continues to go up, peaking around noon. It starts declining late afternoon and evening. Choose your moment wisely.
You&rsquo;re worried that your BP might be high. Yep, that can do it too. If it&rsquo;s high, you&rsquo;ll get even more worried, which will make it worse. Your inner Thomson&rsquo;s gazelle will start slotting like crazy.
You&rsquo;re lonely. The systolic pressure of the loneliest people in a study went up more than 14 points over four years. Loneliness, fear of rejection, disappointment, are all BP triggers. And yes, COVID-19 loneliness can raise your BP.
When I check my BP every morning, I do all the right things. I clear all bodily effluents, drink some water, sit still for a few minutes and most of all, try to calm my mind. That&rsquo;s the tough part for a person like me. If I think about calming my mind too much, it will start getting ruffled, so I must calm it anonymously. Facing me is a gorgeous, intricate Tibetan thangka painting of the Buddha in green, beige, orange and gold, peaceful in itself.&nbsp;
If I switch perspective, I can see two faces&mdash;the obvious Buddha but an unobvious demon. To see it in the photo above, look for the wide orange lips at the bottom, a green-gold bar moustache above it, and the Buddha&rsquo;s knees as the eyes. The Buddha himself is now inside the demon&rsquo;s head.
My own head is already feeling soothed by my inner Buddha. The deep blue water at the bottom of the frame, with monks waist-deep carrying flowers makes my subconscious feel cool and still, reverent like them.
If I can maintain this chill moment somehow, I know I will get my best blood pressure reading.&nbsp;
Buddha willing.
Here, viewed from there. C Y Gopinath, in Bangkok, throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai, the city that raised him. You can reach him at cygopi@gmail.com Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com The views expressed in this column are the individual&rsquo;s and don&rsquo;t represent those of the paper
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Little known fact: everyone has blood pressure. Lesser known—it goes up and down all day. Don’t get easily convinced that you have high BP

The lowdown on high blood pressure

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The lowdown on high blood pressure

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