Measuring Blood Pressure Lab

From my data, I learned that my systole was 120 and my diastole was 75 for test one. For test two, I learned that my systole was 140 and my diastole was 70. The two tests showed somewhat different results mostly likely because we did them so close to each other due to time. A typical blood pressure is 120/80 mm Hg. The first number represents the pressure when the heart contracts and is called the systolic blood pressure. The second number represents the pressure when the heart relaxes and it called the diastolic blood pressure.

This is my data for heart rates and blood pressure.

To measure heart rate, you need a stethoscope and your own two fingers to measure the pulse rate (radial and carotid). You use a stethoscope only when you find the pulse of your actual heart. Carotid arteries are located on your neck while radial arteries are located on your wrists. To measure blood pressure, you use an instrument called a sphygmomanometer. The sphygmomanometer contains an air bulb, valve, cuff, a pressure gage, etc.

Using your thumb to measure pulse is not ideal because there are large vessels located in the thumb that have their own pulse so it can interfere with the pulse you are trying to find.

Using a blood pressure cuff (sphygmomanometer) is simple once you understand the procedure. First, you wrap the cuff around the person's upper arm, making sure the cuff is located above the crease of the person's elbow. Make sure to put on a stethoscope so you can hear the pulse later on in the lab. Inflate the cuff gently while watching the pressure gauge. Keep inflating until the person's pulse disappears. When you reach about 150 mmHg, open the valve on the air pump slightly, making sure not too much air is released. Listen to the stethoscope carefully until you hear the heart beat start again. This is the systolic blood pressure (write it down). The sounds should continue to become louder. Write down when you hear the sound for the last time. This is called the diastolic blood pressure.

This is a picture of the stethoscope and sphygmomanometer we used.

Unit 2 Reflection

Health is the measure of our body's efficiency and over-all well being. The 5 pillars of health are very important to live a healthy life, which include stress, exercise, social, sleep, and nutrition. All of these pillars of health are very important and people should not focus on just a couple, they should focus on all of them. Being Healthy also corresponds to having healthy hormones. The "big 4" hormones are Insulin, Leptin, Cortisol, and Glucagon. Insulin is anabolic hormones secreted by alpha cells of the pancreas while Glucagon is the opposite: catabolic hormones secreted by beta cells of the pancreas. When insulin, leptin, glucagon, and cortisol are doing their job properly, you are physically healthy.After studying Unit 2 Health, I think I am healthy because I always follow the five pillars of health. Sleep is very important to me and I try to get as much as possible. I eat healthy and stay away from hydrogenated oils. I try not to get too stressed out because that can negatively affect my health. I play tennis every day and I also play on the school tennis team. Lastly, I spend a lot of times with friends. However, I don't think overall people at Saratoga High School are healthy mostly because they are not getting the necessary amount of sleep and they get too stressed out from school. Students procrastinate which makes them more likely to be sleep deprived. To promote greater health and wellness on campus, I think students should be given less strenuous homework assignments and students should try not to procrastinate. 

I learned a lot from the health unit. I did not know that stress and sleep can affect your overall well being. I also learned a lot from the Falcon Market because a lot of the foods I thought were healthy turned out to be very fatty. For example, some types of peanut butter contain hydrogenated oil, which I thought was very interesting because hydrogenated oil (transfat) is very bad for you and should be avoided as much as possible. I also learned a lot about the different types of hormones and the effect they have on the body. The themes and essential understandings of this unit was what is health, what is needed to maximize your nutrition for optimal health and disease prevention, how does exercise enhance health, why is sleep important, what are the physiological affects of stress, and why are social connections good for your health? I still don't fully understand all the functions of the hormones, such as leptin and cortisol because they are very complex. To improve on the next unit, I will focus more in class and try to stay more organized with all my worksheets. 

This unit relates to my life because my grandma got a very severe diabetes and I never fully understood why. However, now i know that diabetes is common with people who eat an excess about of sugars and unhealthy things. This relates to one of the five pillars of health: nutrition. To prevent from getting diabetes or other illnesses, people need to eat good food, including omega 3. 

Goal Sheet: My health goals are to eat more fruits and vegetables and to sleep more. The actions I will take is to pay more attention to the foods I eat and to not procrastinate so I can finish my homework earlier. A healthy life is important to me because I want to be healthy and I don't want to die from any health related reasons. I will know when I have reached my goal when I have eaten more vegetables and I sleep earlier. 

Images relating to blog post: (sleep, good nutrition, and exercise)

Monday Wellness Reflection

Link to Google Presentation:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qbXs8aSpLjKF9leBtxv0DF8mW3iA1LOpTTMSozO2xdA/edit?usp=sharing

For our Monday Wellness Project, Cassi and I chose stretching because it is a really interesting topic and I feel that a lot of athletes don’t stretch because they think it is a waste of time. However, I wanted to inform the class that stretching does help and it should be done before and after exercise for many benefits that were discussed in the presentation. From our research on stretching, we learned that muscles need to be well circulated and healthy. A normal person spends most of the day in the same position. If people avoid stretching, their muscles will continue to fatigue. As a result of not stretching, people decrease their circulation and flexibility. As an athlete myself, I found this research very fascinating because before this presentation, I would rarely stretch before practice because I always thought that stretching was a waste of time. However, this presentation taught me that stretching is beneficial and now, I stretch before and after practice and games. Our Monday Wellness project has really inspired me to stretch myself.

The most interesting things that we learned while preparing for the presentation was Brad Walker’s research that explains that the current research on stretching is flawed. As we were looking through research, we noticed that a lot of the research done on stretching was done in the same way: two groups, one stretching and the other not stretching. This led us to Brad Walker’s article that talks about the flawed research because stretching shows effects after a long period of time. Also, we found that changing stretches too often, called “bouncing,” is not beneficial. This fact was very interesting to me because usually when I stretch, I would change my stretches often to get it over with, but now I know that doing that is not effective and shows no beneficial results. 

Stretching is important for health and wellness because it increases flexibility, increases range of motion, improves circulation, promotes better posture, etc. Stretching is very important and athletes should not just skip stretching because it is very beneficial. I think stretching should be enforced more in sports because it is very useful and ultimately helps people’s overall wellness. 

Overall, I would give our presentation a high 8 or low 9 out of ten because even though we spent a lot of time preparing for our presentation, we put too many videos in our presentation. This was not effective; instead, we should have just talked about the major points in the videos. I think that we should have explained more of the anatomy of the different stretches so students can understand how the major muscle groups work during stretching. We should have made the presentation more interactive so students would not get bored during our presentation. Also, I think that our information was very helpful and I hope people now understand that they should spend more time stretching. I feel that a lot of students don’t do stretches properly, mostly because they are too lazy, so I hoped that the stretches we did during class showed them the most effective ways to stretch in order to get the full effects of the stretch.