Medicine & Health
How does blood pressure work?
Blood pressure works as a balance between how hard your heart pumps and how much your arteries resist that flow. Each heartbeat pushes blood out, raising pressure; between beats it falls. Narrow or stiff arteries push the numbers up.
See it in motion.
Watch a 2-minute animated lesson that shows exactly how blood pressure works.
Step by step
- 1Your heart's pumping creates the pressure.
- 2Arteries' width and stiffness resist the flow.
- 3Pressure peaks on a beat, dips between beats.
- 4Narrow vessels raise the pressure.
Frequently asked questions
- How does blood pressure work?
- Each heartbeat forces blood into your arteries, creating pressure; how much the arteries resist that flow sets how high it climbs.
- What raises blood pressure?
- Stress, salt, excess weight, and stiff or narrowed arteries can all push it up.
- How is blood pressure measured?
- A cuff inflates to briefly stop blood flow, then slowly releases while a sensor reads the systolic and diastolic values.