The lower your resting heart rate, the better. True? Why?
In: Biology
This isn’t true. An athlete with a resting heart rate of 40. Good. A resting heart rate of 40 in a patient with CHF and/or EF. Bad. It is one of those things where you have to look at what is causing the low resting heart rate.
How can I lower it enough to reach annual happiness?
Not always the case. Bradycardia can be deadly. But in general, your resting heart rate is an indication of your level of fitness. If you have a stronger, healthier heart, it doesn’t have to work as hard to circulate your blood. The most simple way to gauge this is your resting heart rate. A heart that can perfuse the body by beating 40 times a minute is inherently stronger than one that needs to beat 50 times. Again, this is a very simplistic way to evaluate heart health but that’s the gist of it.
When I go to give plasma the nurse does a pulse check before. If it’s less than 50 it’s a problem, so I make a point of jogging along the last few hundred metres.
There’s an idea that all animals live for about a billion heart beats. Lowering your resting heart rate by this theory would lengthen your heart’s lifespan. Google it and do your own research though, it’s more complicated than that theory lets on.
Cool. Zero BPM : awesome.
… “I’m afraid we have lost the third engine and will be delayed by a further half an hour”
The *insert target demographic* responds ; “I hope we don’t lose the last engine or we will be up here forever”
People have different definitions of what is considered “resting”. I’ve always been told it’s your heart rate first thing in the morning before you’ve gotten out of bed and free of anything that can make it beat faster. When you are and have been truly “at rest”. Anything besides that is all relative to stress or stimulants and any other true measurements of heart health can only be achieved by a doctor.
It is because everyone has a limited number of heart beats in their lifetime. Eventually you get to the last one, and you get no more.
Having a lower heart rate means you are using them up slower.
Back when I was 19-20 mine was in the high 30’s. Was in great shape. Now at 50 it’s in the 50’s
A late coworker was a long-distance runner before cancer caught up to him. His wife would often have to remind the nurses to check his chart for his normal resting HR and BP, lest they panic about his vitals time and time again.
Latest Answers