At the dr’s office the idea is generally sit down and relax for a few moments, if you have gotten exerted by walking up stairs or whatever. Otherwise there’s not much special. The main difference is they usually have a nurse take your blood pressure with a manual squeeze bulb device, using a stethoscope to listen to your pulse underneath the cuff. This is more accurate than using an automatic pushbutton monitor like most people use at home. The pushbutton monitors work somewhat differently and inherently lose accuracy from that.

I don’t know if it’s possible to take your own blood pressure with the manual gizmo. You might need another person to do it, and they have to know how. It’s not rocket science but it’s more complicated than pressing a button. There are online instructions and youtube vids showing how to do it, I’m sure.

It might be possible to build a fancier machine that does the manual-style measurement automatically, but it would be more expensive than the typical kind.