As many of you know, Laddering can be quite stressful, exciting, or rage-inducing to name a few emotions that many people experience. There are both positives and negatives to this, but I want to discuss a negative: High Blood Pressure.
About a month ago, I took my BP after an intense ladder game, it was 182/93. For those of you that don't know, that is very high. Keep in mind that I lead a healthy lifestlye, exercise regularly and am not overweight. This scarred me quite a bit so I went to see a Cardiologist the next day to do several tests. It turns out that my heart is fine but I do have some Hypertension (my usual BP is around 140/80).
It would be worthwhile for those of you that have a BP machine at home to take some readings after very close ladder games or losses that made you very angry. If it's too high, you might want to go see a Doctor just in case, because if there is an anomaly within your heart, High BP can quickly devolve into a dangerous situation.
Attached is a screenshot of the highest BP I've recorded after a game of SC2.
Let's remember that our health is a priority when it comes to any activity that might endanger it.
Do you have any comments regarding this issue? Let's discuss it here.
hmm 189 is considered high? since i was 12 i always had 190-195, i played football, was lifting weights with that and i didnt feel bad or anything strange..
You know what else raises your BP to those levels? Sex. Guess we should go see a doctor after that too huh :p
My point is, obviously your BP will go up given the ridiculous ammounts of adrenaline that any regular SC2 match involves.
You are right about high BP exacerbating an already existing problem, but if SC2 is the reason you found out about your heart issue, then you have bigger problems with sedentarism of the highest degree.
I´ve never really raged because I play to have fun and to practice. When you get irritated just breathe slowly and try to not think about the game for a few minutes and then come back and analyze your game to make sure it doesn´t happen again.
On September 18 2011 23:40 RajaF wrote: You know what else raises your BP to those levels? Sex. Guess we should go see a doctor after that too huh :p
My point is, obviously your BP will go up given the ridiculous ammounts of adrenaline that any regular SC2 match involves.
You are right about high BP exacerbating an already existing problem, but if SC2 is the reason you found out about your heart issue, then you have bigger problems with sedentarism of the highest degree.
189 is standard for intense workout sessions. As long as you're limiting your play to reasonable amts of time it's probably healthy for you, but I'm no doctor.
well.. if ever would freak out about sc2 to get a blood pressure like in the picture of the op I would stop playing sc2. It's a game and everybody should enjoy it, not feel stressed..
I actually just had a problem with my blood pressure in school where it said something ridiculous like high blood pressure when i said i was feeling dizzy, in case your not using the hospitals or manually they told us not to trust those you can buy OtC because they can really be misleading
On September 18 2011 23:39 whiteLotus wrote: hmm 189 is considered high? since i was 12 i always had 190-195, i played football, was lifting weights with that and i didnt feel bad or anything strange..
Pffft, thats nothing, you kids are casual as heck.
I've had constant 250 since I was ELEVEN. I also lift weights,play football AND on top of it I do boxing,rowing,climbing and sudoku.
OP and whitelotus please see your doctor immediately
hypertension carries a lot of risk factors such as coronary artery disease which is the leading cause of heart attacks. basically a high BP means that there is so much stress on your cardiovascular system that your body cannot compensate for it. a high BP means your heart is under much greater stress and combined with other factors could lead to heart failure. any systolic above 140 is considered high and you should be making changes to diet/exercise/take medications to lower your BP.
On September 18 2011 23:39 whiteLotus wrote: hmm 189 is considered high? since i was 12 i always had 190-195, i played football, was lifting weights with that and i didnt feel bad or anything strange..
Pffft, thats nothing, you kids are casual as heck.
I've had constant 250 since I was ELEVEN. I also lift weights,play football AND on top of it I do boxing,rowing,climbing and sudoku.
like a bau5
I have over 9000.
Nah seriously, I actually get somewhat scared when I go over 150 (and I do feel it so I measure it then). -_- But I've heard that the "standards" can vary quite a bit for different people.
On September 18 2011 23:39 whiteLotus wrote: hmm 189 is considered high? since i was 12 i always had 190-195, i played football, was lifting weights with that and i didnt feel bad or anything strange..
Pffft, thats nothing, you kids are casual as heck.
I've had constant 250 since I was ELEVEN. I also lift weights,play football AND on top of it I do boxing,rowing,climbing and sudoku.
like a bau5
My blood Pressure is well over 10000.
To be honest, ill start worrying about my heart when my chest starts hurting. If you live your life over fear of what might happen, you will never live.
On September 18 2011 23:39 whiteLotus wrote: hmm 189 is considered high? since i was 12 i always had 190-195, i played football, was lifting weights with that and i didnt feel bad or anything strange..
Pffft, thats nothing, you kids are casual as heck.
I've had constant 250 since I was ELEVEN. I also lift weights,play football AND on top of it I do boxing,rowing,climbing and sudoku.
like a bau5
I have over 9000.
Nah seriously, I actually get somewhat scared when I go over 150 (and I do feel it so I measure it then). -_- But I've heard that the "standards" can vary quite a bit for different people.
We came up with the same joke at the same time. -_-
just spam ladder, i don't get any stress from that anymore. Also works: play quirky fro some time so you take some losses by expectation. This helps in devaluing your "internal importance rating" of your sc2 account. In fact nobody cares about your ladder rank and/or nobody has to know in case =)
On September 19 2011 00:10 Big-t wrote: I dont know my blood preasure after gaming, but sometimes I am breathless.
Are you serious lol. Do you breathe really deep and fast during the game? Sound like you are hyperventilating.
Lolol trying to imagine that!
Personally if you are having a really really epic game and you haven't had one for a while you do get all jittery. But I don't think the difference is going to be that major most of the time. Especially if you are a experienced ladderer and you just chill while you play.
High-blood pressure does not mean you are a stressed person. I have a rather high pressure but I am still a very relaxed person and laddering is not a stressful experience for me.
I can tell when my BP goes up, and laddering is not one of those circumstances. To make sure, I tested though, and my BP did indeed go up slightly. Not significantly, but still on a level where it couldn't have been anything else. Then again, it is pretty stressful to be able to perform 5-7 actions at once for more than a half hour.
Felix Faure, the 7th president of France, is reputed to have died from hypertension secondary to a blow job in 1899.
Hypertension can cause spontaneous strokes and sudden death, but it can also cause a gradual transformation of blood vessels across the body and lead to other more insidious problems like kidney failure (dialysis is not fun) and aneurysms, which can themselves break under pressure and hemorrhage.
On September 19 2011 00:02 PrideNeverDie wrote: OP and whitelotus please see your doctor immediately
hypertension carries a lot of risk factors such as coronary artery disease which is the leading cause of heart attacks. basically a high BP means that there is so much stress on your cardiovascular system that your body cannot compensate for it. a high BP means your heart is under much greater stress and combined with other factors could lead to heart failure. any systolic above 140 is considered high and you should be making changes to diet/exercise/take medications to lower your BP.
Please stop scaring people, and stop telling lies.
A single measurement says nothing, unless it's above 220 (or like 110 diasystolic). Anything else can be a normal reaction of your body (like stated by several people above me) from stressfull situations.
You should measure your BP in a normal situation, because that's the state you will be in most of the day. You can either measure that yourself, or ask your general practioner. Best would be to take several standard moment (like breakfast/lunch/dinner/before sleeping), to see it vary over the day.
I would only do that though if there's many people in your family with cardiovascular problems, or when you have an unhealthy lifestyle or are obese.
A good doctor will provide a small device that will routinely check a patient's blood pressure over 24h. If the systolic BP is above 140 for a certain number of times, then they'll discuss it in greater detail and likely give the patient medication. Drake is right that single data points aren't useful and that they need to be measured over time. Nonetheless, extremely high blood pressure under times of physical activity mean there is a chance for high blood pressure at rest.
Considering the fact that 2/3 of the population of the US is overweight or obese and that cardiovascular disease is comparable with cancer in causes of deaths, its not a stretch to investigate findings of high blood pressure at rest. The modern lifestyle makes it so people now have diseases in their 20s (or younger) that people used to have in their 40s and 50s.
If you are in an intense game you can usually feel something... its called adrenaline. OFC your bp is gonna go up because you are getting a shot of adrenaline. It is a perfectly normal response. Nothing wrong with you, or playing starcraft.
edit: One of the main reasons I play starcraft is for the adrenaline rush. It feels the void left from no longer playing competitive high school sports where I played football and football(soccer) and could literally feel an adrenaline high for 2+ hours during the games. Recreational leagues just don't provide the same rush... but starcraft does. I still enjoy playing rec leagues, but I need my adrenaline high!
did this as a subject for my paper where we tested a range of individuals using a game and then took their bloood pressure throughout with proper control, there is no major change however what we did observe was tht when individuals where looking at the monitor they had elevated bloodpressure another point is that the heart rate monitor that u are using is probly different from the one that ur doctor uses, good doctors take it manually with a stethascope while thhe digital ones use forumlas taht have variable degrees of effectiveness.
also relative to ur height and weight ur blood pressur eis variable.
having done a study oin this i would ask people to stop making comments that make my eyes bleed with their lack of accuracy.
On September 19 2011 05:47 Medrea wrote: If you are young high blood pressure is a good thing when you are being active. Gaming counts as active.
n o it dosent it i sa passive sedatary activity (in the physical sense) thus u shouldn't see massive CHANGE in ur blood pressure. there is a lot of misunderstanding about blood pressure and wat it means (i.e. wat does my personal blood pressure indicate about my health)
On September 18 2011 23:40 RajaF wrote: You know what else raises your BP to those levels? Sex. Guess we should go see a doctor after that too huh :p
My point is, obviously your BP will go up given the ridiculous ammounts of adrenaline that any regular SC2 match involves.
You are right about high BP exacerbating an already existing problem, but if SC2 is the reason you found out about your heart issue, then you have bigger problems with sedentarism of the highest degree.
All the Europeans saying it doesn't matter if your BP gets high, unless you're in the USA etc need to do a little research themselves before instantly trolling. I'm a cardiovascular tech now currently in nursing school and have seen it all.
If you do a couple minutes of research you can see that not only is heart disease just as important to be careful of in Europe, it is the top 2 reasons people die in that part of the world.
In Europe every year over 1 in 5 people die every year from Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) and about 1 in 8 die from stroke and is increasing percentage wise every year.
As said before 120/80 is normal and when it goes up drastically in a short period of time it can be very dangerous to your cardiovascular system. Although... personally, I think SC2 is worth the risk!
Personally, I'm not worried about this at all, I've played competitive video games(not on a competitive level though) since I was like 10 and have felt my heart pounding really hard a billion times when playing a close game of Counter Strike or an exciting arena game in World of Warcraft and that has not been a problem for me at all. Also, I hate losing and have raged twice as much and that hasn't been a problem either. And for the record, I don't exactly live a healthy lifestyle, I'm not overweight or anything though.
Try doing that with other activities too. Go for a run and when you're about to get back home start sprinting and then measure your BP right after. It should be about the same. Same with right after sex, or any other intense activity that gets your heart rate going. You shouldn't worry about temporary high blood pressure so long as your resting BP is normal.
maybe peopl eneed to lighten up and realize that losses only help us learn and should only be used for that reason and not stress so much they kill themselves (just an idea)
On September 18 2011 23:39 whiteLotus wrote: hmm 189 is considered high? since i was 12 i always had 190-195, i played football, was lifting weights with that and i didnt feel bad or anything strange..
if ur Blood pressure is over 150/100 u should not be training, u should be seeing ur GP/doc and getting some diuretics or some other meds to bring it down before training...
**EDIT**
High blood pressure is never considered a good thing even when you're young (i duno who said it). It rapes your arteries and puts your heart under unnecessary strain which can lead to things like stroke/arteriosclerosis etc etc
If your blood pressure spikes that high, maybe you should scout more. Btw Blood pressure is going to be related to your overall health more than anything, stop eating crap and processed foods.
Smile when you get cheesed and gg lol. If you ever get in that rage mode then you need to walk away and play some fps or jump around like a bunny or lift weights.
So now we are going to measure SC2 skill by blood pressure, not APM anymore I guess. Blizzard should make another column for blood pressure next to APM. I'm interested to see how BP and APM of people such as IdrA
You know i'm not joking the best way to get over this high blood pressure is to play more starcraft. By playing more you overcome and type of fear or anxiety you normally have and your BP will most likely calm down. Except for those epic game but nothing beats that adrenaline rush.
On September 18 2011 23:39 whiteLotus wrote: hmm 189 is considered high? since i was 12 i always had 190-195, i played football, was lifting weights with that and i didnt feel bad or anything strange..
Pffft, thats nothing, you kids are casual as heck.
I've had constant 250 since I was ELEVEN. I also lift weights,play football AND on top of it I do boxing,rowing,climbing and sudoku.
like a bau5
are you adding your systolic and diastolic blood pressure?
Basically says that anything over 160 systolic is SEVERE hypertension. Like you should go see your doctor right now. Are you checking your blood pressure RIGHT after some kind of stressful activity?
If you ARE adding systolic/diastolic and you are actually something like 120/70, then yes you are pretty healthy (blood pressure wise). Otherwise, SERIOUSLY, go see a doctor. You are about to die.
Glad I never get angry after I lose. This could have been dangerous for me as my dad has really high blood pressure. Does anyone know if it's hereditary?
Btw I like how technology is so prevalent these days the OP referred to his picture as a screenshot lol
If its rage-induced high blood pressure i really dont see the need to see a doctor, because you already know the cause.
I have the same issue, i get so angry sometimes that my heart beats so fast it turns into a panic attack. Either learn to control it or quit playing
aslo: Blood pressure and heart rate is not the same thing,a BP of 200 is a serious health risk and no, even after excersize your BP is not that high, your Pulse (heart rate) might be though... big difference
On September 19 2011 20:44 Flanneh wrote: Its not losses that make my heart beat faster, its getting a close win. Losing just depresses me, the only health risk there is suicide xD
(First post on tl)
What a way to start, with a suicide comment :O
I agree though, sometimes I get shaky from close games, an awesome feeling when you realise that it's from a video game. Losing just makes me wanna hit things :D
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