High blood pressure, or hypertension, occurs when your blood pressure increases to unhealthy levels.
When you get your blood pressure numbers, there are two of them. The first, or “top” one, is your systolic blood pressure. The second, or “bottom,” one is diastolic blood pressure. Knowing both is important and could save your life. When your heart beats, it squeezes and pushes blood through your arteries to the rest of your body. This force creates pressure on those blood vessels, and that's your systolic blood pressure.
