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What's the difference between Blood Pressure and Mean Arterial Pressure?

Mean Arterial Presure and Blood Pressure both tell us about the pressure blood exerts on the walls of the arteries but they are telling us in slightly different ways.

Blood pressure gives us 2 values - the systolic pressure when the ventricles contract, and a diastolic pressure when the ventricles relax. Normal is 120/80. The top number is systolic and the bottom number is diastolic.

MAP stands for mean arterial pressure. It gives us one number which is the average pressure on our arteries over one cardiac cycle. You spend more time in diastole than systole so you can calculate it by adding the diastolic pressure to 1/3 of the systolic pressure minus the diastolic pressure (aka pulse pressure). Normal is 70 - 100 mmHg.
MAP = DP + 1/3(SP – DP) or MAP = DP + 1/3(PP)

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