I check my BP a lot for reasons, too, and this matches my experience as well. A few tips to reduce the variance (but it'll never go away):
* the position of both of your arms, and the angle your elbows are bent at matters. make sure the edge of your desk isn't pushing into your forearm.
* same goes for both of your legs. make sure you're sitting with legs uncrossed, relaxed angles, make sure the edge of your chair isn't pushing into the back of your thighs excessively.
* control your posture. slouching seems to have an effect too, but I'm unclear on the mechanism.
Anecdotally, the nurses at the doctor's offices I go to rarely (~never) bother to control for any of this other than telling me not to cross my legs. So while I fully believe white coat hypertension is a thing, I also think there's a lot of poor control of variables here. If you look up the AMA/AHA guidelines for blood pressure, the ranges they offer are predicated on some very prescriptive protocols for measurement.. which I virtually never see adhered to.
* the position of both of your arms, and the angle your elbows are bent at matters. make sure the edge of your desk isn't pushing into your forearm.
* same goes for both of your legs. make sure you're sitting with legs uncrossed, relaxed angles, make sure the edge of your chair isn't pushing into the back of your thighs excessively.
* control your posture. slouching seems to have an effect too, but I'm unclear on the mechanism.
Anecdotally, the nurses at the doctor's offices I go to rarely (~never) bother to control for any of this other than telling me not to cross my legs. So while I fully believe white coat hypertension is a thing, I also think there's a lot of poor control of variables here. If you look up the AMA/AHA guidelines for blood pressure, the ranges they offer are predicated on some very prescriptive protocols for measurement.. which I virtually never see adhered to.