Just the other day, I was feeling pretty lousy. With a high temperature, feeling alternately hot and cold, it was an absolute shoo-in that I had an infection and a fever, but being a stoic, I tried to shake it off without visiting the doctor. Unsuccessfully as it turned out, so I relented (eventually) and off I went to see the man who could fix me up. I have a pretty good idea what is wrong and after I explain the symptoms, so does he, but here's the thing. What is the first thing that he does? He takes my blood pressure. I don't have a blood pressure problem as far as I am aware - I have an infection - but the first thing he does is take my BP. Maybe this scenario sounds familiar? I would guess so, because it is almost inevitable that when you visit your doctor or any other health care professional, the first thing that they are going to do is take your blood pressure. Perhaps you have wondered why this might be the case, why your doctor should be so concerned about your blood pressure when 90% of the time, the condition that has driven you to their office or surgery has got nothing whatsoever to do with BP. However, if anything, you should be eternally grateful that your doctor is paying so much attention and looking after you so well, because high blood pressure is a massive problem in all developed Western countries, and the sooner you know about the problem, the better you are able to deal with it. If your doctor or any other medical care professional diagnoses that you have a high blood pressure problem, they will undoubtedly recommend various medical treatments for your problem. And, whilst many of these treatments might be effective, there are many natural ways of treating high blood pressure that you should consider before turning to potentially harmful chemical-based pharmaceutical treatments. This book is going to give you the lowdown on high blood pressure and how to deal with it entirely naturally. It will also highlight many of the most common medical treatments for high blood pressure and why you should consider dealing with any high blood pressure problem naturally before you turn to potentially harmful pharmaceutical solutions. What is blood pressure, and why is it important? In simplistic terms, blood pressure is a measurement of the force with which your blood is pumped round your body. It is the pressure that your pumping blood places on the walls of your arteries, the blood vessels that carry blood away from your heart. The easiest way of understanding the concept of BP is to think of water pumping through a garden hose. When it does so, the water places pressure on the walls of the hose as it tries to 'escape' in any possible direction. And in the same way that you increase the pressure on the walls of your garden hose if you increase the water flow by turning the water tap or faucet on a little more, your blood pressure increases if your heart starts pumping more blood around your body for some reason in exactly the same way. Your exact blood pressure is measured by reference to two different factors. The first of these factors is the strength of each heartbeat, whilst the second is the resistance put up by the 'tubes' through which you blood passes, primarily your capillaries and arteries. It is the arterioles, the tiny blood vessels that feed into the capillary network that regulate blood pressure more than any other part of your body. These arterioles expand and contract in rhythm with the beating of your heart as result of the muscular tissue in their walls. Hence, measuring blood pressure is in effect checking the strength or weakness of your heart. Your blood pressure is measured by reference to two different numbers which represent the systolic and diastolic pressures. The first of these, the systolic is a measurement of the highest pressure point which is recorded when the heart beats or contracts. .