Introduction
My blood pressure was high.
My heart felt like it was racing, too.
I measured, and the top number hit about 155.
That's not something you ignore, so I went to an internist the same day.
But right around the time I got to the clinic, the numbers started dropping.
In my log, it looks like this:
155/83
→ around 142
→ 132
→ 122
I even bought a home blood pressure monitor, and now I'm at 122.
You'd think that's good news.
But honestly, what I feel is:
So what was that first 155 about?
I got better right when I went to the hospital
That monitor wasn't cheap, you know
Still, shrugging it off with "so it was nothing after all" doesn't feel right either.
Looking back over the last few months, here's what my life looked like:
- I'm supposed to be in bed by midnight, but I stayed up until 1 or 2 a.m.
- I felt "I want to sleep more" the moment I woke up
- I got through the day on coffee
- On weekends I slept until noon
- I kept running at full throttle on job hunting, app development, writing articles, social media, games, and manga
- My head and body never closed up shop before the next day began
Given all that, these numbers look less like a mysterious sudden abnormality and more like this:
Lack of sleep, fatigue, stress, caffeine, and nonstop stimulation finally showed up as a number
In this article, I'll sort out the following:
- How to read the drop in blood pressure from 155 to 122
- Whether "I got better once I went to the hospital" can really happen
- What it has in common with a childhood memory of not being able to pee, then being fine at the hospital
- What several months of late nights, coffee, and weekend catch-up sleep actually mean
- Whether the monitor and the doctor's visit were a waste
- How to keep track of my lifestyle and my numbers from here on
1. A reading of 122 is good news, but that doesn't make 155 a fluke
If my top number is 122 now, that reading itself is calm.
For home measurements, 135/85 mmHg or higher is generally used as the guideline for high blood pressure. So 122 isn't a high value, at least at the moment I took it.
However, none of these necessarily follows:
I got 122
= the 155 was a measurement error
= nothing was going on in my body
Blood pressure isn't a fixed number.
Even in the same person, it changes with:
- the time of day
- sleep
- mental tension
- pain
- exercise
- caffeine
- a hot bath
- your posture while measuring
- what you did right before measuring
So it's not that only one of 155 or 122 is the "true" blood pressure.
It's possible that both were real readings for that moment:
Under heavy strain, it went up to 155
Once life and tension settled down, it came down to 122
What matters isn't a single number but this:
What range does it stay in when you measure under the same conditions?
Because the numbers dropped, the lifestyle explanation got stronger
After the visit, these changes came in:
- Going to bed earlier
- Quitting caffeine
- Turning down the intensity
- Asking the doctor how risky this was
- Tracking my blood pressure at home
After that, my blood pressure went to 132, then 122.
This doesn't pin down the cause.
But it does fit the hypothesis that:
Lifestyle strain and tension were weighing heavily on the numbers
If I keep my life in order and the readings stay stable for several days to several weeks, it becomes even more likely that it was the effect of temporary strain.
2. Why do people "get better once they reach the hospital"?
"By the time I got to the hospital, the symptoms had faded" is a common experience.
But the hospital itself has no magical healing power.
It's easier to understand if you separate out these main factors.
2-1. It eased up naturally on the way to the hospital
People decide to see a doctor when the symptoms are at their worst.
After that, it takes time to:
- change clothes
- get there
- check in at reception
- wait
- see the doctor
Temporary pain, tension, a spike in blood pressure, a racing heart and the like can fade naturally in that time.
You act at the peak of the symptoms, and by the time you're examined you're back to your average state.
In statistics, this return to the normal range after an extreme is called "regression to the mean."
So even if it looks like:
I went to the hospital, so I got better
what may actually have happened is:
I headed to the hospital at my worst, and went back to normal on the way there
2-2. Handing it over to an expert lowered my body's guard
When you don't know the cause or how dangerous a symptom is, your body tends to stay on alert.
Is this bad?
Am I going to collapse?
Is this some serious illness?
That uncertainty itself creates tension.
Once you see a doctor, you're in this state:
I don't have to judge this on my own anymore
If it's needed, the doctor will handle it
I can find out whether it's dangerous
Then sympathetic nervous system arousal and alertness to pain ease off, and your pulse, blood pressure and the way you feel pain may change.
This doesn't mean it was "all in your head."
Research on placebo and context effects has shown that context, such as medical staff, tests, expectations of treatment and a reassuring setting, affects pain and autonomic nervous system responses.
In other words,
My symptoms eased because I felt reassured
doesn't mean the symptoms were fake.
It means the alarm system in my brain and body really did calm down.
2-3. I changed my lifestyle around the same time as the visit
This time I didn't just go to the hospital.
At the same time, I also started to:
- cut out caffeine
- turn down the intensity at night
- go to bed earlier
- measure my numbers
- observe how I feel
So instead of the simple cause and effect of
I went to the hospital
→ I got better
it's more likely that all of these happened at once:
reassurance from the visit
- the passing of time
- better sleep
- no more caffeine
- lower intensity
- natural fluctuation in blood pressure
3. In elementary school, I also "got better at the hospital"
In fourth grade, I was riding my bike and slammed my crotch hard.
After that, this happened:
- It hurt when I peed
- It was hard to get anything out
- I was scared
- My parents were angry the whole way to the hospital
- I went to the doctor in an awkward mood
At the hospital they asked for a urine sample, and I thought:
I'm scared, but I just have to go for it
and peed.
It came out normally.
No pain either.
So I thought:
I'm already better by the time I got here
Looking back it's a little funny, but at the time it was a pretty awkward experience:
- My crotch hurt
- I couldn't pee
- My parents were angry
- I was taken to the hospital
- I dreaded the urine test
- In the end it came out as if nothing had happened
Going to the doctor back then was the right call
Even though I ended up peeing normally, going to the hospital was the right decision.
After a hard blow to the crotch or the area between the legs, if there's:
- inability to pee
- blood in the urine
- blood coming from the opening of the urethra
- severe pain or swelling that won't go away
then you need to have injuries such as damage to the urethra checked.
So it's not a case of
I got better in the end, so I didn't need to go
It was a set of symptoms where you should go, to confirm there was no dangerous injury.
Pain and fear may have locked up the peeing mechanism
Urination requires coordination of:
- the bladder contracting
- the outlet of the urethra relaxing
- the muscles around the pelvis relaxing
But in a state like
I got hit hard and it hurts
Peeing will probably hurt even more
What if nothing comes out?
My parents are angry too
the body tends to tense up.
It's possible for pain and fear to tighten the muscles around the outlet and make it even harder to go.
When I got to the hospital and thought
I just have to do it here
If anything's wrong, they'll look at me
the tension may have let go, and I could pee normally.
There are no medical records from that time, so I can't pin down the cause, but a combination like
a minor bruise healing over time
- the tension from fear letting go
- arriving at a place that feels safe, the hospital
wouldn't contradict my memory.
What it has in common with this blood pressure episode
In both the childhood episode and this one, there's a pattern:
I don't know what's happening
→ my body goes on alert
→ the symptoms get stronger
→ I head to the hospital
→ I feel the relief of having handed it to an expert
→ time passes
→ the symptoms ease
Maybe I'm not "making up" symptoms. Maybe I'm the type for whom
the body's alarm goes off hard in response to an uncertain danger, and switches off fairly quickly once safety is confirmed
4. The real culprit: a combination of lack of sleep, fatigue, stress, and caffeine
You can't pin it on just one cause.
But when I look at my daily log, a lot of pretty obvious ingredients are lined up.
4-1. I'm supposed to sleep at midnight, but stayed up until 1 or 2 a.m.
If I need to get up around 6:30 to 7 a.m., going to bed at midnight already means only about 6.5 to 7 hours of sleep.
Stretch that to 1 or 2 a.m. and it's about 5 to 6 hours.
Adults are generally recommended to get around 7 to 9 hours of sleep.
It varies from person to person, but if you feel
I want to sleep more, right from the moment I wake up
you probably weren't getting the amount you need.
And this went on for months, not just a few days.
A little deficit piled up every single day.
4-2. I made up for weekday shortfalls by sleeping until noon on weekends
Sleeping until noon on a day off isn't bad in itself.
Sleeping long is a natural way to recover from lack of sleep.
But if it turns into
Short sleep on weekdays
→ sleeping until noon on days off
→ hard to fall asleep Sunday night
→ short on sleep again from Monday
then your body clock drifts between weekdays and weekends.
Also, you can't always fully repay a week's worth of sleep debt in one or two weekend days.
Long sleep on days off may not be
proof that you normally get enough sleep
but rather
proof that your body is trying to recover the weekday shortfall.
4-3. Coffee didn't erase my fatigue, it hid my sleepiness
Caffeine helps you stay awake.
But it doesn't pay back sleep debt.
To put it in an analogy, it's not
filling up the gas tank
but closer to
making the fuel warning light harder to see for a while.
The fatigue itself hasn't gone away.
You just feel less sleepy, and you can keep going.
The result is a loop like this:
Stay up late
→ sleepy in the morning
→ drink coffee
→ able to function during the day
→ can't turn down the intensity at night either
→ go to bed late again
Too much caffeine can cause:
- a faster heart rate
- palpitations
- higher blood pressure
- insomnia
- interrupted sleep
- anxiety
- restlessness
This time, my blood pressure settled after I quit caffeine and went to bed earlier at the same time.
That doesn't prove the cause, but there's at least a good reason to keep it up.
4-4. It wasn't only the hours of sleep: I was at full throttle right up to bedtime
The problem isn't only "how many hours I slept."
Right up until bed, I was doing:
- job hunting
- app development
- writing articles
- big-picture life planning with myself
- social media
- games
- manga
- analyzing music
My head is always looking for:
the next thing to process
new information
ideas for improvement
insights
fun stimulation
Even if I crawl into bed like that, my body doesn't shut up shop right away.
To get enough sleep, it's not enough to
get into bed at midnight
You also have to
start turning down the intensity before that.
4-5. A day I woke at 6:30 from bad dreams doesn't count as "slept enough"
Midnight to 6:30 is 6.5 hours on paper.
But that day I had one bad dream after another.
Nightmares can interrupt sleep and lead to an unpleasant feeling after waking and lower sleep quality.
So rather than
I slept 6.5 hours and woke up naturally, feeling satisfied
it's possible that
nightmares cut my sleep short.
For sleep, you need to look beyond length at things like:
- whether you woke up in the middle of the night
- whether you feel restored when you get up
- whether you're strongly sleepy during the day
- whether you need extreme catch-up sleep on days off
5. Think of it as "several months of debt showing up as a number"
Tying this whole episode into one line, it goes like this:
I need to be asleep by midnight
→ but for months I was active until 1 or 2 a.m.
→ still sleepy in the morning
→ boot up on coffee
→ keep running at full intensity both day and night
→ make up the shortfall by sleeping until noon on weekends
→ ongoing mental load from work, job hunting, development, articles, social media, and games
→ the alarm goes off as palpitations and high blood pressure
→ I see a doctor
→ I quit caffeine
→ I go to bed earlier
→ I turn down the intensity
→ I also get reassurance
→ it drops to 132, then 122
With this timeline, a more natural explanation than
a mysterious illness suddenly went away
is
long-term strain from my lifestyle temporarily pushed the numbers up, and they came back when I eased the load.
That said, this is just the leading hypothesis at the moment, not a medical diagnosis.
That's exactly why I'll keep improving my lifestyle and watch how it goes.
Your body doesn't sound the alarm only once it's confirmed broken
Blood pressure and palpitations don't show up only when
a serious illness has fully developed.
They also move with:
- lack of sleep
- mental tension
- fatigue
- caffeine
- pain
- exercise
- measuring conditions
These numbers may not have been
a confirmed notice that I'm seriously ill right now.
But they were a perfectly meaningful alarm saying
don't keep going at this intensity for months or years.
6. The doctor's fee and the monitor weren't wasted
Now that I'm at 122, it's easy to think
I didn't need to go to the hospital, did I?
I didn't have to buy a blood pressure monitor, did I?
But what I bought this time isn't just a blood pressure monitor.
I bought a way to confirm "my blood pressure isn't high all the time"
Before the visit, I didn't know:
Is this 155 going to last forever?
Is it temporary?
Is it dangerous?
Is it okay to leave it alone?
Having bought the monitor, I could confirm that
after I changed my lifestyle, it drops to 122.
Instead of settling my anxiety by feel alone, I can follow it with numbers.
I bought a "gauge for when I'm pushing too hard"
From now on, I don't need to use the monitor only to look for illness.
I can use it as an indirect way to check:
- whether I'm sleeping well
- whether I'm having too much caffeine
- whether fatigue is piling up
- whether I'm staying overstimulated by work or life planning
Of course, blood pressure alone can't fully measure how tired I am.
But if all of these line up:
clearly higher than usual
- a fast pulse too
- sleepy from the morning
- catching up on sleep on days off
- running at full throttle lately
that's a basis for deciding to turn down the intensity.
I bought a convincing reason to change how I live
I'd known in my head for a long time that
staying up late is bad
getting through the day on coffee is bad
I should rest
But even knowing that, high stimulation is fun.
Job hunting, development, articles, games, and social media can all just keep going.
Then the number 155 showed up.
Because that number appeared, the thought
it's time to really change how I run things
started to feel real.
In other words, the blood pressure monitor became
a device that gets me to accept the decision to turn down the intensity
7. Going forward: don't go back just because it's 122
What I most want to avoid is this:
It dropped to 122
→ I'm fine now
→ I'm up until 1 or 2 a.m. again
→ I get through the day on coffee
→ it goes up again
If the numbers have dropped, I should consider that
the lifestyle changes I made may be the right ones
and not take it as
proof that I can go back to how I used to live.
7-1. Make a midnight bedtime a hard cutoff, not an ideal
Midnight bedtime is not
nice if I can manage it
but a working rule for now.
If I get up around 6:30, even midnight gives only 6.5 hours.
Ideally I'd get into bed a bit earlier to make 7 hours easier.
But first, I'll lock in
no activity past midnight.
7-2. Leave a wind-down time before bed
If I'm working on development or life planning until midnight, falling asleep right at midnight is hard.
So I'll build in a closing-up routine like:
- Not starting any new task after 11 p.m.
- Stopping the deep dives into social media, job hunting, development, and articles
- Switching to nature videos or low-stimulation sounds
- Dimming the lights
- Telling my body it's over with a bath or a light walk
This isn't "time doing nothing."
It's
processing time to get my body ready for sleep.
7-3. Stay off caffeine until I can see how things go
If I start caffeine again, it'll be hard to tell whether the improvement came from:
- sleep
- less stress
- quitting caffeine
- natural fluctuation
For now I'll stay off caffeine and watch my numbers and sleep.
If I do start again someday, I'll handle it like this:
- Small amounts
- Mornings only
- Check the effect on palpitations and sleep
- Avoid it before measuring blood pressure
7-4. Measure blood pressure under the same conditions
For blood pressure records, matching the conditions matters more than measuring too many times.
Morning
- Within an hour of waking up
- After using the toilet
- Before breakfast or medication
- After sitting and resting quietly
Night
- Before going to bed
- Not right after a bath, exercise, or drinking
- After sitting and resting quietly
Measure under those conditions.
Don't draw conclusions from a single abnormal reading; keep a record and look at the average and the trend.
7-5. Record lifestyle conditions alongside the numbers
Numbers alone make it hard to read the cause.
Keep a log like this:
| Date | Morning BP / pulse | Night BP / pulse | Bedtime | Wake-up | Caffeine | Fatigue / stress |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Example | 122/―・― | ― | 0:00 | 6:30 | None | Had nightmares, a bit sleepy |
Then you'll start to see links like:
- The day after a late night, it's high
- Resting on days off brings it down
- On days with strong stress, my pulse is fast
- Without caffeine, it's stable
8. Even if it looks lifestyle-related, don't hesitate to go back to the doctor
This episode fits the lifestyle explanation well.
But it would be wrong to assume
it's probably lack of sleep
it's probably stress
and ignore every symptom from now on.
In particular, if any of these happen:
- chest pain or pressure
- severe shortness of breath
- fainting, or a sense of blacking out
- slurred speech
- trouble moving an arm or leg on one side
- a severe headache
- vision problems
- strong palpitations that continue even at rest
- very high blood pressure that keeps coming back
then talk to a medical provider again.
Having normalized once doesn't invalidate future abnormalities.
The childhood crotch injury is the same story.
Even if the symptoms vanished at the hospital, at the point where
I couldn't pee
going to the doctor was the right thing to do.
And this time as well, just because
it went down afterward
doesn't mean I was wrong to see a doctor after seeing 155.
9. What I really gained this time
What I gained isn't only
maybe I don't have high blood pressure after all.
What's bigger is that, through the numbers from my own body, I recognized that
for months I'd been cutting back sleep, pushing on coffee, and stacking one stimulation on top of another.
I'd known it in my head for a long time.
But with actual measurements from my body, I've moved on to the stage where I can seriously implement the change.
How I ran things until now
Active until 1 or 2 a.m.
→ sleepy in the morning
→ push through on coffee
→ get through the weekdays
→ sleep until noon on weekends
→ feel recovered and start over
How I'll run things from now
Turn down the nighttime intensity early
→ asleep by midnight
→ see whether I can boot up in the morning without caffeine
→ see whether the extreme weekend catch-up sleep decreases
→ watch the trend in blood pressure and pulse
→ turn down the intensity before it goes high
This is more than a healthy habit.
It's a change in how I run things so I can use my high-output capacity for the long haul.
Conclusion
My blood pressure started dropping around the time I went to the hospital, and now it's 122.
Looking only at the outcome, it's a bit anticlimactic.
The blood pressure monitor was pricey, too.
The internist's fee added up as well.
Still, that's clearly better than staying unhealthy.
And it's not a case of
I got better when I went to the hospital, so it was nothing.
What happened this time was this chain of events:
Months of lack of sleep, fatigue, stress, caffeine, and nonstop stimulation pile up
→ my body sounds the alarm with palpitations and blood pressure
→ I see a doctor and confirm the risk
→ I switch to going to bed early, quitting caffeine, and turning down the intensity
→ the numbers settle
→ I can track how it goes with the monitor
The blood pressure monitor wasn't just a machine for confirming a disease.
It became
a gauge for bringing my life back when I'm pushing too hard.
I don't need to settle right now on a single word for what that 155 was.
I can just watch how my numbers and my health trend while my life is in order.
And rather than going back to my old life because it dropped to 122,
I'll make the life that got me down to 122 my standard for now.
That's the most practical conclusion I can take from this alarm.
References
Japanese Society of Hypertension, "Guidebook for the General Public on the Guidelines for the Management of Hypertension 2019"
https://www.jpnsh.jp/data/jsh2019_gen.pdfNational Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, “How Much Sleep Is Enough?”
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/sleep/how-much-sleepNational Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, “Sleep Deprivation and Deficiency”
https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/sleep-deprivationCDC, “About Sleep and Your Heart Health”
https://www.cdc.gov/heart-disease/about/sleep-and-heart-health.htmlFDA, “Spilling the Beans: How Much Caffeine is Too Much?”
https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/spilling-beans-how-much-caffeine-too-muchAmerican Heart Association, “The rules for measuring blood pressure—and why they exist”
https://www.heart.org/en/news/2024/06/25/the-rules-for-measuring-blood-pressure-and-why-they-existWager TD, Atlas LY. “The neuroscience of placebo effects: connecting context, learning and health.”
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6013051/American Urological Association, “Urotrauma Guideline”
https://www.auanet.org/guidelines-and-quality/guidelines/urotrauma-guidelineNational Library of Medicine, “Sleep Disorders”
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/sleepdisorders.html
