Wouldn’t it be great if we could eliminate heart attacks and strokes? As someone whose children’s lives were seriously upended by their father’s strokes, I have partnered with Omron Healthcare in a series of four sponsored posts to help achieve Omron’s mission of “Going for Zero,” the elimination of heart attack and strokes.
Eliminating these diseases depends on a series of factors based on prevention, including healthy nutrition, consistent exercise and stress reduction, plus knowledge of your personal statistics. Do you know what your blood pressure is? In November 2017 the American Heart Association lowered the threshold for hypertension from 140/90 mmHg to 130/80mmHg, which means that more than 103 million Americans are now classified as hypertensive.
I’ll back up a bit, to explain the wonky stuff. The two numbers refer to your blood pressure; systolic (130) is the bigger number, and diastolic (80) is the lower, with mmHg being an abbreviation for “millimeters of Mercury.” Hypertension is merely a fancy word for “high blood pressure.” If you take your blood pressure, you want the numbers to be BELOW 130/80, as normal blood pressure is <120/<80 mmHg. I’m a vegetarian and consistent exerciser, so my blood pressure (BP) tends to hover around 91/69, though it goes up a bit when I’m under stress.
Hypertension is so closely linked to cardiovascular disease (heart attacks) and strokes that it’s essential to track your BP. If you’re like me, we get our BP read once or twice a year by our physician, though just the act of going to the doctor can increase our stress, leading to a somewhat higher reading.
This leads me to my reason for working with Omron – with their latest EVOLV BP monitor, Omron has created an FDA-approved portable, wireless upper-arm monitor that I can use at home, where I am much more relaxed.
I’m in my late 50s, yet the percentage of people under 45, and as low as age 20 are now at increased risk of falling into the high BP category, so I certainly don’t want my two boys (they’re in their 20s) to become complacent, especially knowing their dad’s medical history. With nearly 800,000 strokes occurring each year in the U.S., I want them to measure their blood pressure on a regular basis so they can stay healthy for another 80 years.
Want to prevent a stroke or heart attack? Know your #bloodpressure. We've partnered w/ @OmronHealthUS to get the word out #GoingForZero #ad
Click To Tweet
With this in mind, I’ve signed the Going For Zero pledge, and will nag encourage my boys to do the same. My EVOLV wireless monitor (with Bluetooth and Alexa compatibility, no less) should arrive in the mail any day. Go take a look at the monitor for yourself. It’s under $100, which is way cheaper than a doctor’s visit or hypertension medication.
Both my sister and I will be posting over the next few months to share our experience with the Omron blood pressure monitors. I’m especially hoping to decrease my stress so I can get a BP reading that keeps my systolic under 100. I’m certain that pestering my boys to exercise more, eat better, decrease stress and know their BP stats will help with that!
This post is sponsored by Omron Healthcare, and approved by me, the mom who wants to live a long and healthy life, both for myself and in order to be there for my boys.
By Alexandra Williams, MA
The post Going for Zero: No More Strokes or Heart Attacks appeared first on Fun and Fit: Active Aging Answers for Boom Chicka Boomers.