Although blood pressure varies naturally throughout the day, persistent morning high blood pressure may signify an underlying problem. A person's blood pressure is normally lowest at night, during sleep. After waking in the morning, blood pressure begins to slowly rise and continues to rise before beginning to drop in the afternoon. Variations to this pattern, such as regular morning high blood pressure spikes, may signify a serious medical condition. But working late nights and stress can also contribute to abnormally high morning blood pressure.
Sleep Apnea
Nearly 15 million adults in the United States suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, a sleep disorder that causes a person to stop breathing repeatedly throughout the night. In a September 2008 article published in Circulation, Dr. Virend K. Somers wrote that a disproportionate amount of those 15 million Americans also suffer from hypertension, or high blood pressure. A person with obstructive sleep apnea may also sleep in short spurts, waking frequently throughout the night.
Caffeine
Drinking coffee or tea in the morning can cause high morning blood pressure. Caffeine can raise the blood pressure of people who don't normally have high blood pressure. Normally, the blood pressure spike is of a short duration. Some people who drink caffeine regularly have consistently higher blood pressure readings than those who don't. Others develop a tolerance to the effects of caffeine. According to the Mayo Clinic, a person who is sensitive to the effects of caffeine should limit his daily intake to no more than 24 oz. per day.
Renal Disease
Persistent early morning high blood pressure can be a sign of organ failure. In the December 2005 issue of the journal Internal Medicine, Dr. Satoru Kuriyama wrote that morning high blood pressure was a "useful predictor" for kidney disease and damage to other organs. The correlation held true even when patients with kidney disease were under medical treatment for hypertension. Dr. Kuriyama's research may signal the need for patients suffering from morning high blood pressure to take hypertensive medication at night, before bedtime and again in the early morning.
