Following my diabetic check-up on Tuesday, my clinician asked me to keep a week-long morning and evening BP diary. It has been an incredibly eye-opening exercise.
Normally, I only test in the morning. But looking at the full day’s data, I realized my morning readings are heavily impacted by the “morning surge.” As we wake up, our systems are flooded with cortisol to wake us up, which often leads to elevated readings.
Throughout the day, my vascular system is actually in much better shape than I thought!
The Big Takeaways:
- The “Initial shock”: My first reading is almost always high (constricted vessels). This can be caused by the very mild shock of just putting the BP cuff on and thinking about the logistics of taking the reading, but also demonstrates I’m usually not fully relaxed. By the second or third reading, it drops significantly.
- Exercise is Medicine: On Thursday, after my bike ride, my BP dropped to 120/76—literally a normal, healthy reading!
- The Ultimate Morning Victory: This Saturday morning, I hit a resting average of 120/80 with a resting pulse of 60 bpm! For my age and where I started, that is incredible.
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