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How To Rate Your Heart Rate
A Bite-Size Read for Your Health and Your Waistline
Most often we think of cardiovascular health in terms of cholesterol numbers. But there are some other important numbers to know about your heart! The best part is, you can find these out yourself, right now. No doctor’s appointment or blood work necessary.
While we are lucky that our hearts beat on their own (we don’t have to think about it or tell it to beat), we want to be aware of what it might be telling us. Do you know your resting heart rate? If not, it’s time to learn! Our heart rate can inform us of heart function, mortality risk, and even how certain treatments are working. If we experience a change in our resting heart rate, it can indicate that something else is going on with our overall health.
First, most of us know our heart rates are measured by pulse. Your pulse tells you how many times your heart pumps in one minute. What’s interesting is that your heart rate is based on what you’re doing and what’s going on around you. Influences include: exercise, resting, age, overall health, cardiovascular health, excitement, nervousness, surprise, terror, and more. As a frame of reference, adults tend to be 60–100 BPM during the day when awake and it’s typically lower when sleeping.
