Ask your doctor or nurse to help you locate one. The other name for hypertension is high blood pressure. To help understand high blood pressure, you must first understand what blood pressure is. As your heart beats, it forces blood through large blood vessels in your body called arteries. Arteries take the blood from your heart to all other parts of your body.
Blood pushes against the walls of the arteries.
Blood pressure is the force of your blood against the walls of your arteries. Normally, arteries are muscular and are able to stretch. They stretch and narrow as blood goes through them. Your blood pressure has two numbers. In many cases, the cause of high blood pressure is not known.