under pressure

Today I got my blood pressure checked... again.

You see, I had to have a physical of sorts for a new life insurance policy that I took out a few months ago. The first time around they took blood and asked a bunch of questions and took my blood pressure. For one reason or another, everything checked out just fine...except for the blood pressure. It was elevated. Not hypertention kind of elevated. Just above normal and just enough to "elevate" my insurance premiums.

The deal is that if I am in perfectly good health then I pay $96 a month for my life insurance. They call this kind of consumer "preferred" or something like that. If I am "mostly" healthy and don't smoke then I pay $160 a month. So the difference between my blood pressure being normal and it being slightly elevated is a difference of about $840 a year for the next "however many number of years" that I live.

It may have been stress. It may have been a few extra pounds or a little too much sodium in my system. Whatever the reason, I wasn't going to settle for "elevated." I knew I was a healthy dude and felt like the blood pressure reading was off for that day. So, I got my blood pressure checked again today and wouldn't you know it, perfectly normal (at least when it comes to blood pressure). 120/82. Not bad. I went ahead and submitted these results to the insurance folks.

Not only do I feel better about saving money, but I feel better knowing my heart is doing just fine.