Blood pressure should be measured lying down: study
I think the bigger issue with measuring blood pressure is that, aside from diagnosed diabetics, it&#x27;s a measurement done infrequently and at mostly arbitrary times. Your blood pressure reading on the day of a doctor&#x27;s appointment, right after you&#x27;ve driven to the appointment, made your way through the intake pipeline, and finally sat down in the chair, is not representative of its reading during a typical day in your life. Other factors like recency of coffee or alcohol consumption, exercise and sleep, all combine to make blood pressure a fairly variable statistic with limited diagnostic power when it&#x27;s only measured infrequently.<p>Regardless of whether you&#x27;re lying down, standing up, or sitting in a chair, it would be beneficial to take more frequent blood pressure readings, throughout the day and during typical routines, than it would to only take them every time you visit the doctor. This seems like common sense, and you can even buy blood pressure sensors for $20 on Amazon, but how many people take their blood pressure on a regular basis? Once you&#x27;re a diagnosed diabetic, then maybe you start measuring it every day - but wouldn&#x27;t it be better to start such a habit <i>before</i> you become diabetic? After all, if you&#x27;re continuously measuring a variable then you can notice patterns and anomalies, and take steps to mitigate them - possibly avoiding becoming diabetic before it&#x27;s too late.<p>It seems the limiting factor is sensor technology, which is obviously lacking compared to wearable sensors for tracking heart rate. Any health-conscious person with an Apple Watch or similar wearable device can easily track their pulse throughout the day. But no similarly accurate and seamless sensor exists for measuring blood pressure (as far as I know?), so nobody measures it as frequently as they do their pulse. Once we have the technology to accurately and passively measure blood pressure throughout the day, preventive medicine will become much easier, and people will have a better feeling for how their blood pressure responds to small changes in their environment and lifestyle.