Children Have Higher Resting Heart Rates Than Adults
According to Purvi Parwani, MD, director of Women’s Heart Care at Loma Linda University International Heart Institute, children tend to have a higher resting heart rate than adults because of a faster metabolism. “For example, a newborn heart rate of 100 to 150 bpm is considered normal,” Parwani says.
However, the average resting heart rate of a child also depends on age and activity level during the day. According to the US National Library of Medicine, the resting heart rate range for children changes every few years until around 10 years old:
- Newborns 0 to 1 month old: 70 to 190 bpm
- Infants 1 to 11 months old: 80 to 160 pm
- Children 1 to 2 years old: 80 to 130 bpm
- 3 to 4 years old: 80 to 120 bpm
- 5 to 6 years old: 75 to 115 bpm
- 7 to 9 years old: 70 to 100 bpm
- 10 years and older: 60 to 100 bpm
How To Lower Resting Heart Rate
Whats A Normal Resting Heart Rate
While age and activity level can affect your heart rate, as we mentioned above, there are a few normal parameters.
Your resting heart rate is when your heart pumps the minimal amount of blood that your body needs because youre at rest.
Resting heart rates can vary by individual. Additionally, factors like age, activity level, and certain medications can also impact your resting heart rate.
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What Is The Heart Rate
The heart rate is the number of times the heart beats in the space of a minute.
The heart is a muscular organ in the center of the chest. When it beats, the heart pumps blood containing oxygen and nutrients around the body and brings back waste products.
A healthy heart supplies the body with just the right amount of blood at the right rate for whatever the body is doing at that time.
For example, being frightened or surprised automatically releases adrenaline, a hormone, to make the heart rate faster. This prepares the body to use more oxygen and energy to escape or confront potential danger.
The pulse is often confused with the heart rate but refers instead to how many times per minute the arteries expand and contract in response to the pumping action of the heart.
The pulse rate is exactly equal to the heartbeat, as the contractions of the heart cause the increases in blood pressure in the arteries that lead to a noticeable pulse.
Taking the pulse is, therefore, a direct measure of heart rate.
When To Consult Your Doctor About Your Target Heart Rate
You should consult your medical provider about your heart rate for the following reasons:
- You have a heart condition. Work with your medical provider to find a target heart rate thats safe for you.
- Some medications can lower your maximum heart rate. Work with your medical provider to determine your target heart rate range.
- Before you start an exercise program. Your doctor may recommend certain tests for you first. Especially for people with diabetes, at risk for heart disease, or men over age 45 and women over age 55.
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What The Resting Pulse Tells About Your Health
Your resting pulse can provide useful information about your health. Most of the times, a low resting heart rate can be an indicator of cardiovascular fitness, whereas a high resting heart rate can be adverse sign.
Beyond that, doctors may use information about your pulse for diagnostics. As mentioned above, an elevated heart rate can be a sign of an illness. Furthermore, it is used to determine how well the vessels are filled with blood.
As the heart rate indicates the speed and rhythm of the heartbeat, your doctor can also tell if your heart is beating smoothly or if you have a heart rhythm disorder, such as atrial fibrillation.
More information on cardiovascular health
What Is Your Pulse
When your heart beats it pushes blood around your body. This heartbeat can be felt as your ‘pulse’ on your wrist or neck
Your pulse is measured by counting the number of times your heart beats in one minute. For example, if your heart contracts 72 times in one minute, your pulse would be 72 beats per minute . This is also called your heart rate.
A normal pulse beats in a steady, regular rhythm. However, in some people this rhythm is uneven, or ‘jumps about’. This is known as an irregular pulse.
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Normal Resting Heart Rate
An average adult resting heart rate range is 60 to 100 bpm. The higher end of the range is associated with increased health risks including metabolic syndrome.
Adults with a high level of fitness can have a resting heart rate below 60. Some elite endurance athletes have a resting heart rate below 40.
An elevated resting heart rate of 80 bpm or higher can be an indicator of increased cardiovascular risk and all-cause mortality risk. The risk is most pronounced when the resting heart rate goes above 90 bpm.
Resting heart rate varies by sex. Women tend to have smaller hearts and lower blood volume and hemoglobin, which means the heart needs to beat more frequently to nourish the body’s tissues.
A person’s average resting heart rate also changes from throughout the lifespan, being much faster in infants and slowing by adulthood. The average ranges also change slightly as you age.
Your resting heart rate can also be affected by any medications that you take. For example, beta-blockers and calcium channel blockers can lower your resting heart rate below 60, while medications to treat asthma, depression, and attention deficit disorder might raise it.
Talk to your doctor if you do not actively exercise but you have a low RHR with symptoms of dizziness or shortness of breath.
When someone who is not an athlete or at a high level of fitness has a low resting heart rate , it can be a sign of a medical or health problem.
Target Heart Rate And Estimated Maximum Heart Rate
One way of checking physical activity intensity is to determine whether your pulse or heart rate is within the target zone during physical activity.1
For moderate-intensity physical activity, your target heart rate should be between 64% and 76%1,2 of your maximum heart rate. You can estimate your maximum heart rate based on your age. To estimate your maximum age-related heart rate, subtract your age from 220. For example, for a 50-year-old person, the estimated maximum age-related heart rate would be calculated as 220 50 years = 170 beats per minute . The 64% and 76% levels would be:
- 64% level: 170 x 0.64 = 109 bpm, and
- 76% level: 170 x 0.76 = 129 bpm
This shows that moderate-intensity physical activity for a 50-year-old person will require that the heart rate remains between 109 and 129 bpm during physical activity.
For vigorous-intensity physical activity, your target heart rate should be between 77% and 93%1,2 of your maximum heart rate. To figure out this range, follow the same formula used above, except change 64 and 76% to 77 and 93%. For example, for a 35-year-old person, the estimated maximum age-related heart rate would be calculated as 220 35 years = 185 beats per minute . The 77% and 93% levels would be:
- 77% level: 185 x 0.77 = 142 bpm, and
- 93% level: 185 x 0.93 = 172 bpm
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Your Resting Heart Rate
When you are at rest, your heart is pumping the lowest amount of blood to supply the oxygen your body’s needs. For most healthy adult women and men, resting heart rates range from 60 to 100 beats per minute. However, a 2010 report from the Women’s Health Initiative indicated that a resting heart rate at the low end of that spectrum may offer some protection against heart attacks. When WHI researchers examined data on 129,135 postmenopausal women, they found that those with the highest resting heart ratesmore than 76 beats per minutewere 26% more likely to have a heart attack or die from one than those with the lowest resting heart rates62 beats per minute or less. If your resting heart rate is consistently above 80 beats per minute, you might want to talk to your doctor about how your heart rate and other personal factors influence your risk for cardiovascular disease.
Exercise Recovery And Overtraining
Athletes sometimes monitor their RHR to help them determine when they have fully recovered from a hard workout or race. Since they already know their usual RHR, they can monitor it and see when it returns to normal .
A resting heart rate that is 5 bpm above your usual RHR indicates that you may need more recovery time.
A high resting heart rate is a sign of overtraining. Your resting heart rate may be elevated for one or more days after a vigorous endurance workout, such as running a 10K race or walking a half-marathon. You may want to delay another hard workout until your resting heart rate has returned to its usual value.
Fitness monitors and apps that record resting heart rate daily can use that data to give you a notification when you are ready for another hard workout. If you aren’t fully recovered, the app might recommend a light intensity workout instead.
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Charts Of Normal Resting And Exercising Heart Rate
The heart is an organ located just behind and slightly to the left of the breastbone, and pumps blood through a network of veins and arteries known as the circulatory system. The right atrium is sent blood from the veins, and delivers it to the right ventricle. It’s then pumped into the lungs where it is oxygenated. The left atrium is sent oxygen enriched blood from the lungs and delivers it to the left ventricle, where it’s then pumped throughout the body, and the ventricular contractions create blood pressure.
A pulse is the beating of the heart as it’s felt through the walls of an artery, such as the radial artery at the wrist. Pulse rates can also be felt and measured at the carotid artery located on the side of the neck, the temporal artery at the temple, or the femoral artery on the anterior side of the hip, and a chart showing normal heart rate can be used to check on your heart rate.
How Will You Spend Your Heartbeats
- Your resting heart rate appears to determine how long you live. And what lowers your resting heart rate is also good for your overall health.
- Theres at least one risk factor of having a very low RHR, but there seems to be a higher risk of overall disease at higher heart rates.
- Stress, physical or emotional, seems to be the most important factor in determining your heart rate.
- Exercise allows your body to adapt to stressful situations better. Additionally, it will enable your body to reach a deeper relaxed state as your heart muscle becomes stronger and your circulation becomes more efficient.
- How do you compare with your age group? I am in the athlete range, but I exercise regularly.
- If youre going to exercise, build up slowly so your body can adapt.
- The simplest exercises are the most effective. Theyre the ones you can do at home every day without going to the gym.
- High-intensity interval training is one of the quickest and most effective workouts for resting heart rate, HRV, muscle building, and weight loss. Why not give it a try?
- You have a maximum number of lifetime heartbeats, use them well.
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What Is A Good Resting Heart Rate By Age
A healthy resting heart rate is about 60 beats per minute, but this number varies with age. The normal range for a resting heart rate is between 60 bpm and 100 bpm. Well-conditioned athletes, however, could have a resting heart rate of 40 bpm.
If a low resting heart is key for health and longevity, how can you lower your resting heart rate naturally?
What Is A Target Heart Rate
According to the AHA , your target heart rate during moderate-intensity activities is about 50 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate. Vigorous physical activity should result in about 70 to 85 percent of your maximum.
So for 35-year-olds, a goal target heart rate is between 93 and 157 bpm .
The table below shows the target heart rate range and average maximum heart rate for different ages, based on information from the AHA.
| Age |
- being an older adult
- problems with the conduction system of the heart
Borderline or occasional bradycardia may not need treatment. But prolonged bradycardia, or bradycardia thats not treated, can become more serious.
Certain underlying conditions are typically the true decider of what a dangerous heart rate is. If youre already living with heart disease, heart failure, or a history of heart disease and notice a fluctuation in your heart rate, you should go to the doctor as soon as you can, as it could be a sign of a serious complication.
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How To Take Your Heart Rate Or Pulse Rate
Pulse is the heartbeat felt through the arterial wall of the wrist. It is commonly used to measure heart rate, expressed as beats per minute .
How to take your pulse with a radial pulse? It would help if you placed your middle fingers on the inside of your opposite wrist. Once you feel the pulse, you can calculate the pulse within one minute.
You can also measure the pulse at the carotid artery on the side of the neck, the femoral artery on the front of the hip joint, or the temporal artery at the temple.
In addition, you can use a home sphygmomanometer or a digital fitness tracker on a smartphone for measurement. However, they are not as accurate as checking your heart rate manually.
What Do I Do If My Child Has A Rapid Heartbeat
A rapid heartbeat in a child could be a cause for concern. If your childs heartbeat is too fast, you should call your pediatrician. Share the pulse you counted with them, and they will let you know the best next steps.
If your child’s heart is beating too fast for you to count the beats, that could be cause for concern. Learn how to check pulse and what a healthy heart rate is via @Childrens.
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Keys To Getting An Accurate Result
Resting heart rate is determined with a pulse measurement when you are relaxed and at rest. Do not take resting heart rate after:
- Active exercise
Some common causes of low heart rates include the following:
- Heart medications like beta-blockers, certain calcium channel blockers, and even some eye drops
- Heart block
- Hypothyroidism
If You Slow Your Resting Heart Rate Can You Slow Down Aging
Having a lower resting heart rate is associated with having a longer lifespan.
Athletes generally have a lower resting heart rate due to their physical fitness.
One study found that the more physically fit you are, the lower the resting pulse. The same study found that even controlling for physical fitness, people with a higher resting heart rate had a shorter life expectancy compared to those with a lower resting heart rate.
So a high resting heart rate is not just a marker of risk, but a risk factor for premature death. The difference between a risk marker and a risk factor is that if you can control the risk factor, you can control the risk.
Why Is A High Resting Heart Rate Dangerous?
If your heart is beating fast 24 hours a day, all that circulatory stress can damage the elastic fibers supporting your arterial walls making them stiff. Your arteries do not have enough time to relax between beats.
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What Is Resting Heart Rate
Your resting heart rate is how many times your heart beats in one minute while youre at rest. Its both a gauge of your heart health and a biomarker of aging.
RHR changes as you age and varies from person to person. Its important to know your RHR as it can help you assess your heart health over time. Being aware of changes in your RHR can help you uncover a heart condition early.
Resting Heart Rate Versus HRV and Blood Pressure
Resting heart rate, heart rate variability, and blood pressure are all important measures of heart health.
- Resting heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute.
- Heart rate variability is a measure of the variation in the time between consecutive heartbeats.
- Blood pressure is the force of blood flowing through your blood vessels .