My husband has high blood pressure.

[HipposGoBeserk]

What does that mean exactly?

What should he be doing about it?

What should he not be doing?

How can I help?

How worried should I be?

Have been googling but not found anything useful.

Depends how high. Did the GP find it? What did they say?
I used to be on meds for mine but there is lifestyle changes too, less caffiene, less stress, lose weight, exercisemore

He went for a medical at work and they told him. They want to see him again in a month. He coincidentally has a much more thorough private medical tomorrow so will talk to them about it then, but there is a hefty language barrier so may not be entirely useful.

He does need to lose weight and exercise more. Will tell him about caffine.

Needs to go to his GP - they will manage this along with giving advice to lifestyle etc

They need to do more than one reading (hence the come back in a month) as things can 'artificially' elevate BR (White Coat Syndrome, climbing stairs to get to the consulting room, warm day etc). If they see his BP is high after a couple of readings they may do a 24 hour test where he wears a monitor for, well, 24 hours which takes reading s while he's working, relaxing, sleeping etc.
It's never really a bad thing to cut down caffeine, lose a bit of weight, exercise, reduce salt etc though.

What does that mean exactly?

very simply - that the degree of force required to push blood through vessels in the body is higher than it should be for his age category. blood pressure is measured primarily as a number, the first/top number is called systolic pressure - this is the pressure measuring the force of blood as it pumps. The second/bottom number is the diastolic - and is the measure of pressure between beats, so is a lower numerical pressure.

What should he be doing about it?

You can do a lot to help yourself. Excercise regularly, as a rule of thumb enough to break into a sweat and raise your pulse - but I would say here that if he's been diagnosed with a high BP then he needs to see his gp before starting any excercise regime.
Eat little or NO salt, stop smoking, minmal alcohol, low fat diet, lose weight

What should he not be doing?
How can I help?
How worried should I be?

The main thing is that he's been 'caught', many many people have high BP and choose to either ignore (until ill health kicks in) or are unaware in the first place. It may be that his is just anxiety-based, regardless he should see his GP and be checked (and language should not be a barrier, you may ask for an interpreter).

Oh thank you so much for these helpful replies.

No GP as such as we live outside the UK (hence language barrier), but as I said he is seeing a doctor for a thorough general medical tomorrow and they will manage things on a long term basis if necessary. We have pretty good medical insurance.

He has been talking about swimming a few evenings a week and losing weight anyway. I think his BP was not extremely high, but this is a good wake-up call that he could do with being a bit slimmer and fitter and healthier. He is turning 40 soon and his job gets more sedentary as he wanders up the greasy pole. And I shall endevour to cook more healthily too - have fallen into a bit of a delicious rut of cooking with oil and salt and things.

walking, swimming, cycling would all be good pass times to do together or as a family at weekends if you can.