Welcome to the Younger Longer 14-Day Blood Pressure Challenge. My name is Dr. Warrick Bishop. I'm a preventative cardiologist and I'm super excited that you're looking to look after your blood pressure. It is one of the most important and really one of the simplest things you can look after to look after your heart for the rest of your life.

During this 14-Day Challenge I'm going to share with you a whole lot of stuff. Every day, a video, some resources, a challenge or a task for you to complete and a fun fact. Stay tuned, your blood pressure is super important. Let me explain to you how, what you're going to do about it and how you're going to look after yourself for the years ahead 

Why Listen?

• Get practical tips and science-backed advice you can apply immediately.
• Learn from real-world examples and medical expertise.
• Gain daily challenges to help you stay engaged and track progress.
• Take charge of your heart health in a simple, effective, and engaging way.

Transcript

Hi, Dr. Warrick here, and welcome to day one of our blood pressure series. Well, we are here to unpack what you need to know to take control of your heart health, just one small step at a time. Today's message is simple, but powerful. Know your numbers, because blood pressure isn't just a number, it's a reflection of how hard your heart has to work beat to beat to keep you alive. Blood pressure is the force your heart squeezes with to push blood through and against your artery walls. 

Now, having some blood pressure, of course, is normal, because if you had no blood pressure, you wouldn't be able to get up off the floor. But when it's too high, it's like pumping water through an irrigation system at full blast, day and night. 

Over time, that pressure can cause wear and tear, obviously on an irrigation system, but obviously on your arteries, leading to possibly problems with your coronary arteries, your arteries to the brain, cerebral vascular disease, problems with the heart itself causing atrial fibrillation and cardiac failure, and the arteries within the kidneys causing damage. We even believe blood pressure is directly linked to dementia. 

And so blood pressure is super important. It is a major risk factor for heart attack, stroke, kidney disease, and it can do serious damage while people are not even aware. That's why we call it a silent killer. Well, what's the good news? It's one of the most modifiable risk factors we know, but only if we keep an eye out for it. Only if we know the numbers. 

So what is normal? Well, ideally, we want blood pressure around 120 or below systolic, 180 and below diastolic. And even readings up around 125, 130 over the long term can make your heart work harder and therefore wear it out sooner than ideal. 

So that's why the most important thing is figure out what your numbers are. Don't miss mildly elevated blood pressure because mild elevation over time is still too high. And why do we want early detection? Because if we get on top of that blood pressure, it will respond well to therapy and we can save lives. But even more importantly, improve your quality of life in the longer term. 

Thanks for listening. I hope you live as well as possible for as long as possible. And I look forward to sharing tomorrow.

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Heart disease is the #1 killer in the Western World. In Australia, someone dies every 28 minutes from heart disease. That’s 51 people a day. In the US, someone has a heart attack every 40 SECONDS! Fortunately, many heart attacks are preventable. However, regular exercise and eating healthy are no guarantee you won’t succumb to this silent killer.

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