Why do I have high blood pressure?

I was recently measuring my blood pressure after years of knowing it was high. A few years ago I started a more active lifestyle but, other than my resting heart rate lowering, nothing changed. Blood markers are still fine and blood pressure is around 140/80 mmHg.

It should be 120/80 mmHg and there’s no physical anomaly causing it to be high. My blood vessels are nice. My heart is working well.

Blood pressure might be accompanied by a headache or brainfog but the symptoms would always be strongest when blood pressure drops. So it might be completely unrelated. It would also be high during long periods of sitting. The only time when I would feel completely fine is when I’d be walking 20+ kilometers per day.

I think it’s just the autonomous system trying to keep me in the state of constant arousal. While working I experience some amount of stress. I can compensate by humming or listening to music and then continue working without interruptions, pauses or fatigue. At the same time I feel as if my body is very relaxed while sitting and I experience no discomfort. When I lay down my body decides to fall asleep. It is not I that decides that. I feel like the same thing can happen while sitting. For some reason, during work, I never feel sleepy. Either through conditioning, or by the nature of things, I am very aroused and concentrated.

It is like my body is forcing itself to overcome the relaxed state by arousal and stress. It increases the blood pressure and heartbeat. Because of prolonged periods of sitting it never decides to reduce it back to 120/80 mmHg unless I lay down (laying down also reduced or eliminated headaches and brainfogs).

It looks like sitting combined with the need to think for work sends mixed signals that result in long-term high blood pressure.

How can this be tested? I guess I could try not to think hard while sitting and just be relaxed.

How could this be countered? I could increase my blood pressure through highly intense physical effort. This could send new signals that might force the autonomous nervous system to stabilize to a blood pressure that is close to the perfect baseline.

Disclaimer: This is fiction. I have no idea what I’m talking about. This is just me imagining things and the writings presented have no basis outside of my head.