I get consistent results whenever I've been sitting quietly in the same position for about 3 minutes. Any time of day is fine for me, unless there's abnormal stress for some reason.

Hey guys I just have a quick question. For the past couple of months I have been in and out of the hospital. I have had my blood pressure taken from me at least 60+ times. I know most of the numbers but my question is I am sure some of them are not an accurate description of my blood pressure. For example they took it one time before they had to do pre op blood tests so it was sky high because i was freaking out. They also took it while I was knocked out under anastesia and other drugs which I would assume would give very low numbers. They also took it at any other moment so...

What are the conditions that you should be in for an accurate reading?

Don't know if there are any "ideal" conditions for taking it. My Dr. recommended I take mine at different times during the day.

If you always take it first thing in the morning it may be low all the time. But if you drink a cup of salt for breakfast, then drive to work during rush hour and your boss tells you to scrap the project you've been working on for the past month and start over, it could be sky high by 9 am and you would never know it. :)

Update since some were wondering about Lisinopril impacting my strength and fitness. I've been on it for about three months now, and I am not seeing any side effects. My fitness is improving well (tracked with a PowerTap). Sprints are strong, functional threshold on the way up.

My BP remains around 122/68 kind of range, and the Dr. said that's just perfect and we'll leave it alone for now.

Thanks for the update. At least it's something that I can suggest to the doc if he wants me on BP meds eventually.