What is high blood pressure?

Blood pressure consists of two components: systolic pressure and diastolic pressure. Systolic pressure is the pressure when the ventricles of the heart contract and pump blood through the body. Diastolic pressure is the pressure between heartbeats, when the heart is filling with blood.^[1] High blood pressure (commonly referred to as “hypertension”) is when the force of your blood pushing against the walls of the arteries is consistently too high.