Like many people, blood pressure runs on a daily schedule: it gets up in the morning with you, gets more active during the day, and finally, at night, it gets tired and goes to sleep.  As you sleep, your blood pressure decreases until you wake up again.  And while this isn’t a problem for someone with normal or low blood pressure, it can be one for people who have high blood pressure, as it can bring about high blood pressure-related side effects such as dizziness or nausea.

There are a number of factors that can cause morning high blood pressure, including sleep apnea, certain medications, kidney disease, stress, working night shifts, tobacco and caffeine use, and of course, having high blood pressure but not taking measures to control it.  Certain blood pressure medications can also cause high blood pressure to occur in the morning, as some of them don’t last a full twenty-four hours.

If you are experiencing high blood pressure in the mornings, I have to strongly advice that you go see a doctor about it so that he or she can determine what may be causing it.  Recent research has shown that having morning high blood pressure can be problematic, especially if you have Type 2 diabetes, and puts you at a higher risk for conditions such as kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, and coronary heart disease.

This research also showed that lowering morning high blood pressure can reduce vascular (that is, blood vessels) problems for people with Type 2 diabetes.  So it’s important then that if you have this problem, you get it checked out by your doctor.  He or she may run some tests on you for it, including a twenty-four hour monitoring test, which will measure your blood pressure during that time period, which will better illustrate when your blood pressure peaks and when it doesn’t.