Elevated heart rate/blood pressure is often cited as a benefit of working out but a negative side effect of many vices such as nicotine. Why is it healthy in one scenario but not the other?
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It’s not really that increased heart rate is healthy in one scenario and not the other, it’s that exercising is healthy and consuming loads of nicotine isn’t and your resulting heart rate is a very obvious signifier of both. It’s not dissimilar to how heavy breathing whilst running is considered normal but heavy breathing whilst eating a croissant isn’t, or how massive pupils are good when you’re stargazing but less so when you’ve taken four ecstasy pills.
Of course, part of what makes exercise (as opposed to a death march through Siberia) healthy is that it’s typically a short, controlled surge in bodily functions (including increased heart rate) where as part of what makes diet-induced excesses bad is that your heart is going like the clappers for an extended and difficult to reduce time.
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