If you wear a smartwatch or a fitness tracker you are probably used to seeing a stream of numbers on your wrist. Steps taken calories burned hours slept—it is easy to get lost in the data.. If you were to pay attention to just one metric that offers the most revealing window into your overall well-being it should be your resting heart rate (RHR).
Your resting heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute when you are completely relaxed and not doing anything. This is when your heart beats at its rate not when you are eating a big meal or feeling stressed.
Think of your resting heart rate like a car that is not moving. The engine of the car should not be running fast when the car is just sitting there. Your heart is, like the engine of the car. When you are relaxed your heart should beat at an steady rate, like the car engine humming along quietly. Your resting heart rate is a thing to know about your heart. Your heart works the same way. A resting heart rate usually points to a stronger more efficient cardiovascular system.. It is important to understand that your resting heart rate is not just a fitness score. It is a sensitive dashboard indicator that reacts to everything from your sleep quality to your stress levels.
Here is everything you need to know about what your resting heart rate’s telling you and why context matters much more than any single reading.
What is Considered a “Resting Heart Rate?
If you ask a doctor they will tell you that a normal resting heart rate for an adult falls somewhere between 60 and 100 beats per minute. That is a range. For healthy adults a resting heart rate in the 60s or 70s is perfectly standard.
You might have heard that professional endurance athletes—like marathon runners or Tour de France cyclists—can have resting heart rates in the 40s or even the high 30s. Because of this many people assume that they need to push their heart rate low as humanly possible to be healthy.
This is where we need to pump the brakes.
While a lower number generally indicates cardiovascular fitness chasing a perfect ultra-low number is a mistake. Your baseline resting heart rate is heavily influenced by things you cannot control, like genetics your age and your physical size. Furthermore certain medications, like beta-blockers used for blood pressure will artificially lower your heart rate.
Of comparing your number to an Olympic runner or even to your best friend the only person you should be comparing your heart rate to is yourself. The secret to unlocking the value of this lies in finding your personal baseline and watching for patterns.
Why a Lower Number Usually Means Better Fitness
To understand why athletes have low resting heart rates you just need to look at basic biology. Your heart is a muscle. When you exercise regularly especially when you do workouts like jogging, swimming or cycling that muscle gets stronger.
As your heart gets stronger the left ventricle actually becomes slightly larger and more powerful. This means that with every beat it can pump a larger volume of oxygen-rich blood to the rest of your body. In the world this is called “stroke volume.”Because a strong heart pumps much blood with a single squeeze it simply does not have to beat as often to get the job done. It becomes incredibly efficient. An untrained heart might have to beat 80 times a minute to supply the body with oxygen while sitting on the couch. A trained heart might only need to beat 55 times to do the exact same amount of work. Over the course of a day a week or a lifetime that saves your heart an amount of wear and tear.
The Early Warning System: Why Spikes Matter
While the long-term trend of your resting heart rate tells you about your fitness the term day-to-day fluctuations tell you about your recovery and your lifestyle. This is where your smartwatch actually becomes a health tool.
If your normal baseline resting heart rate is 62 bpm and you wake up one morning and see that it is sitting at 74 bpm your body is trying to tell you something. Sudden sustained spike in your resting heart rate is an early warning system. Here is what it usually means:
1. You Are Fighting Off an Illness
Your body knows something is wrong long before you get a throat or a fever. This happens when a bad guy like a virus or bad bacteria gets into your body. When you are fighting off a virus or a bacterial infection your body really starts working. It needs oxygen and a lot more energy to help the white blood cells fight the illness. Your immune system is, like a army that is fighting the guys and it needs a lot of energy to win the fight. As a result your resting heart rate will often spike a day or two before you actually feel sick. If you notice your heart rate creeping up for no reason it might be time to drink some extra water take some vitamin C and get to bed early.
2. Your Sleep Was Terrible
Sleep is the time when your body repairs tissue balances hormones and allows your cardiovascular system to finally power down and rest. If your sleep is fractured—meaning you woke up frequently throughout the night—or if you simply did not get hours of sleep your nervous system remains in a mild state of alert. A poor night of sleep will always result in an elevated resting heart rate the next day. You might have been in bed for eight hours. If the quality was poor your heart rate will expose the truth.
3. You Are Stressed Out
Your heart does not know if you are running from a bear or if you have a lot of work to do at the office. It gets scared either way. This is because your nervous system is like a switch that turns on when you are in a spot. It is called the “fight or flight” response.
When you are really stressed or worried all the time your body starts sending out helpers like adrenaline and cortisol.These helpers keep you on alert. They make your heart beat faster even when you are just sitting at your desk doing nothing. Your heart rate goes up. It stays up.
This happens because of the stress from the deadlines at work and things like that. The deadlines at work trigger your system and the “fight or flight” response just like the bear does. The “fight or flight” response is what gets your heart beating fast. The deadlines, at work cause worry. This worry triggers the “fight or flight” response. If your resting heart rate has been high for a week and you haven’t been working out or feeling sick look at your calendar. Stress might be the culprit.
4. You Are Pushing Your Workouts Hard
When you are going for runs or trying a new workout program you might notice that your heart beats faster even when you are not doing anything. This is a sign that you are doing too much exercise.
Exercise is really tough on your body. It can hurt your muscles a lot. You do not actually get stronger when you are at the gym you get stronger when your body is resting at home.If you do not give your body a chance to fix itself between workouts your heart and brain will get really tired. Your body has a time keeping up. Then your heart will just keep beating and beating.
This is your body telling you that you need to take a day off from working out. Your body needs a rest day to fix itself and get stronger. Rest days are important, for your body especially when you are doing a lot of exercise like going for runs or trying a new workout program.
5. Alcohol and Dehydration
Have you ever checked your heart rate after a night of drinking? It is always significantly higher than normal. Alcohol is a toxin that your body has to work hard to process. It also disrupts your sleep architecture. Dehydrates you. When you are dehydrated your blood volume actually drops. Because there is less liquid in your blood it becomes thicker forcing your heart to beat harder just to maintain normal circulation.
How to Check It Accurately
If you want to start tracking your resting heart rate you have to do it the way. You cannot just look at your watch after walking up a flight of stairs or drinking an espresso and expect an accurate reading.
The absolute best time to measure your resting heart rate is thing in the morning. Before you get out of bed before you check your emails and definitely before you have your morning coffee simply lie there for a minute. Let your tracker do its job. Alternatively you can find your pulse on your wrist or neck. Count the beats for 60 seconds. Doing this consistently at the time every morning will give you a highly accurate baseline.
The Takeaway
Your resting heart rate is a completely free tool for understanding your health. A lower number generally points to a capable heart but remember that the context of your daily life matters more, than any single reading.Stop obsessing over getting the number possible. Instead get to know your personal baseline.