The only way to know if you have high blood pressure is to have it measured by a health professional. Even people with very severe hypertension feel perfectly fine. This is why hypertension is sometimes called the silent killer - because it usually has no symptoms. So get your blood pressure measured regularly before any damage occurs.
Your blood pressure is actually two pressures, first is the rush of blood with each heartbeat, second is the smaller surge in between heartbeats. The first number is the systolic pressure, read as 'over' the second reading, the diastolic pressure.
Blood pressure is measured using a blood pressure cuff and pressure gauge, officially named the sphygmomanometer. This cuff, which is wrapped around your arm, is a cloth-covered rubber tube. By squeezing the rubber bulb, we fill this tube with air, tightening it and constricting your arm's blood vessels. Then the air is let out of the cuff slowly. As the cuff loosens its grip on your arm's arteries, the heart is able to push some blood past the cuff. You can tell when this occurs by listening with a stethoscope on the artery below the cuff; the pressure of the cuff at the point you hear this pulse of blood is your first blood pressure reading, the systolic reading. Then more air is let our of the cuff, and eventually the point is reached where the cuff's pressure equals the lowest pressure heartbeats. The cuff's pressure at this point is the diastolic reading. Below this pressure, you can no longer hear the blood moving through the arteries with the stethoscope.
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