What Is a Normal Heart Rate? Factors Affecting Your Heart Rate

For adults, a normal heart rate approximately ranges from 60 to 100 beats per min. Know more here about healthy heart rate.

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Published on:

18 Nov 2020, 9:56 am

Your heart is an important part of your body as it pumps blood and nutrients to the body. Different people have different heart rates. Now the question is how do you know what is a normal, healthy heart rate and what to consider as abnormal? Let's find out.

Firstly, let's learn how to count your heart rate or your pulse rate. Simply place your index and third fingers on your wrist over the radial artery and feel the beats. Just count it in 15 sec and multiply by four to count your heartbeats per minute.

Factors That Could Affect Your Heart Rate

Here are some of the factors that can determine your heart rate:

• Age

• Activity levels

• Smoking

• High cholesterol or diabetes

• Exposed to air temperature

• Body positioning whether standing or sitting

• Emotions

• Body size

• Medications

A healthy resting heart rate for adults approximately ranges between sixty to a hundred beats per min. Your normal resting heart rate defines when your heart pumps the nominal amount of blood that your body requires when you're at rest.

In the case of children aged 6-15, a normal resting heart rate ranges between seventy to a hundred beats per min.

What Is High Pulse Rate:

Tachycardia is defined as when your heartbeat is too fast which is over a hundred beats per minute for adults.

There exist several factors of Tachycardia which include poor health condition, over anxiety, fatigue, excess consumption of caffeine, excess consumption of alcohol, intense physical exercise, smoking, anemia, etc. Sometimes Tachycardia can get worsen and cause various severe complications like cardiac arrest, stroke.

Low pulse rate:

Bradycardia is defined as when your heartbeat is too slow which is less than sixty beats per minute.

Factors affecting bradycardia are side effects of medication, poor health condition, heart tissue damage, poor sleep disorder, etc. If you are facing some other signs like lightheadedness, fainting tendency, difficulty in breathing then you must consult a doctor.