How to Measure Your Blood Pressure at Home

Updated July 2026

Checking your blood pressure at home is one of the most useful things you can do to manage it — so useful that the current guidelines now treat out-of-office readings as the gold standard for diagnosing and tracking high blood pressure. Here's why it matters, which monitor to buy, and how to get numbers you can trust.

Why should you check your blood pressure at home?

Because a single reading in a doctor's office often doesn't reflect your real, day-to-day blood pressure. You don't live at the doctor's office — you live at home and at work, and that's where your numbers actually matter. Getting a picture of your pressure in the real world can meaningfully change how much medication you need, in either direction. That's why, for anyone with high or borderline readings, I recommend getting your own cuff and keeping track.

What are white coat and masked hypertension?

They're two ways an office reading can mislead you, in opposite directions. I once saw an elderly patient who'd been treated for high blood pressure for months, her doses pushed higher and higher, yet she was increasingly lightheaded and nearly fainting, the symptoms attributed to unrelenting hypertension. In my office her reading was 174/90.

I asked her to track her blood pressures at home for a couple of weeks, especially when she felt lightheaded. Her diary stunned us both: most readings were well below 130/80, and during the lightheaded spells the systolic readings (top number) dropped below 100. Her monitor matched my office cuff exactly, so the device wasn't the problem — she had "white coat hypertension," where simply being in a doctor's office spikes the reading. Her symptoms weren't from high pressure but from medication driving it too low. We stopped the drugs, the lightheadedness resolved, and her home readings held below 140/80 (while the office kept reading 170/90).

The reverse also happens — "masked hypertension," where office readings look borderline but run high the rest of the day, signaling a real need for treatment. Masked hypertension is somewhat less common than white coat hypertension, but tends to be more serious, mostly because it's hiding a more serious problem.

Home data is the only way to catch either one. If your office readings are completely normal, though, home monitoring usually isn't necessary.

Should you get an arm or wrist monitor?

For most people, an arm cuff. Wrist monitors are smaller and more comfortable, but a study found wrist readings match arm readings only about 43% of the time — often reading higher. In addition, treatment guidelines are all based on arm measurements. (A wrist unit can help if you have very large arms.) My go-to brand is Omron, which I find accurate, reasonably priced, and easy to use. There are other good ones out there and I have no financial relationship with any of them. The most important thing is not the brand but how easy it is for you to use, and that it's accurate when tested against office readings. A good home monitor runs about $30 to $100.

How do you know your monitor is accurate?

Check it against the office readings. Bring your cuff to your next appointment and ask the nurse to take your blood pressure with your device and the office device back to back. If they agree, your home data is solid — and since that data may guide real decisions about your treatment, this step is worth it every time you get a new monitor.

How often should you check your blood pressure?

A couple of readings a day is plenty — one in the morning, one in the evening — with a simple log, on paper or stored in the machine. More data is better, but it shouldn't be a burden; if you miss a reading now and then, that's fine. If your readings, on average, look to be in a good range, you can back off on the frequency of the checks. But pick them back up again, regardless of how good they are, for a week or two before your next medical visit. It's always good to have fresh data for review.

Make the numbers work for you

Two last things. First, be an active participant in your blood pressure management: don't accept "let's just watch it" without a plan, because high blood pressure is a modifiable risk and watching alone changes nothing. Second, the most powerful lever is lifestyle — cutting sodium below 2,300 mg a day and eating more fruits and vegetables can lower blood pressure as much as a medication, and the more you do there, the fewer medications you'll likely need, and at lower doses. It's also why Step One Foods can help: calorie-controlled, very low in sodium (pancake mix aside), and built from whole-food ingredients known to bring blood pressure — and cholesterol and weight — down together. If you'd like to learn more about hypertension before diving into any sub-topic, start with what should my blood pressure be.

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