Good Resting Heart Rate

One of the most important factors that comes in question while checking the performance of the heart is the measure of the heart rate. This is nothing but the measure of how many times your heart beats in a time period of a minute. In other words, heart rate is defined as the heartbeats per minute. BPM, i.e. beats per minute, is the unit by which heart rate is measured. Now resting heart rate is defined as the figure that is obtained when the person's heart is at rest, let's say, when he wakes up in the morning after a good night's sleep.

Normal Resting Heart Rate

Resting heart rate may differ from person to person, or to see it more specifically, on the fitness level of an individual. According to what experts say, for a normal healthy person, the figure that lies between 60-100 beats per minute happens to count for a healthy resting heart rate. On the other hand, 40 beats per minute is considered a good one for athletes, which is quite an impossible figure to achieve for a healthy but a non-athlete individual. So what can be inferred from what I have said is, the lower the heart rate, the more efficient the heart is and that implies a better cardiovascular fitness level. The reason is obvious. An athlete would naturally be at a higher state of health than a normal individual.

Factors which are known to influence resting heart rate include:

• Fitness level of the person, as mentioned in the above explanation.
• Size of the body
• Level of physical activity that the person indulges in.
• Even the position of the body matters. While standing up, the measure may be different from what is while lying down.
• Experts say even emotions can affect the normal heart rate of a person.
• Use of medication, as obvious it is, is also included in this list.
• Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, smoking, etc., are the other triggers.
• Environmental factors like exposure to loud noise also influences the heart beats per minute.
• In case you were not aware, the air temperature and air pressure also come into the picture as some of the influential factors. For instance, if you are in a low pressure area then, your heart rate would rise. This is again due to an obvious reason that the heart functions more to supply enough oxygen to the body cells, as there would be a low supply of oxygen in such places.
• Males have a lower resting heart rate when compared to their opposite sex. This is due to the reason that females are subjected to more hormonal changes in their body, which is accompanied by higher fat percentage.

To summarize, remember that if you are physically active then your heart rate would be low and that's a healthy sign. However, if you notice that the measure is increasing with time, then you should tale adequate steps to do something about it.