The sensation of a rapid heartbeat is something familiar to nearly everyone. Your heart rate increases as your body require more blood and oxygen, which might result from mental or physical exertion or an additional cup of coffee.

While some people may not notice their heart rate increasing until they are engaged in rigorous activity, others may sense a difference simply by climbing a flight of steps. Of course, there are many additional factors, such as a shift in posture, underlying health problems, or the use of certain medications that might cause a rise in heart rate. This is why monitoring your resting, seated, and standing heart rate is crucial.

This post will go over some of the strategies on how to lower your resting heart rate and the significance of doing so.

Understanding resting heart rate

Adults usually have a heart rate between 60 to 100 bpm. But sometimes, you may experience slow or rapid heart rates.

Slow heart rate (bradycardia) is diagnosed when the heart rate is less than 60 beats per minute, while rapid heart rate (tachycardia) is diagnosed when the heartbeat is greater than 100 bpm.

Therefore, resting heart rate is the number of times your heart beats in one minute. In other words, it is the average rate at which your heart pumps blood to the body’s tissues and organs while at rest.

Checking your resting heart rate might provide insight into how much your body strives to keep itself going while you’re doing nothing. In most cases, a lower heart rate is preferable from a health perspective, but it may not be the case in all situations.

For healthy individuals, a low heart rate may result from physical fitness, medicine, or even sleep habits. However, a sluggish or lower heart rate can indicate health problems such as cardiovascular disease, certain infections, and high potassium levels in your blood.

A healthy heart rate varies depending on the situation. Therefore, remembering that the “normal” range doesn’t apply to everyone is vital.

Factors That Affect Your Heart Rate

Several variables might affect a person’s resting heart rate. These include:

  • Age
  • Body size
  • Emotions
  • Air temperature
  • Certain medications
  • Body position
  • Having heart-related complications
  • Fitness or exercise levels

Body Size

A heavy weight places additional strain on the cardiovascular system. An increased heart rate is a direct result of the increased resistance to blood flow caused by more fat in the body’s circulatory system.

Image alt text: how to lower your heart resting rate: a picture of obese man as a show of how obesity affects heart resting rates.

Author credit: By ParentingPatch – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22634694

Also, arrhythmia, an irregular heart rhythm, is linked to obesity and can cause cardiac arrest or a stroke if left untreated.

Emotions

The heart rate might increase in response to stress, worry, fear, or other intense feelings. Hormones like adrenaline and cortisol are released into the bloodstream in response to stressful situations, and prolonged exposure to these hormones can raise blood pressure and the probability of a heart attack.

Fitness and Exercise Levels

Cardiovascular training can improve cardiac muscle strength. People who are physically active or athletes tend to have lower resting heart rates than average since their hearts are more robust and don’t have to work as hard.

However, physically inactive or unfit individuals tend to have an increased heart rate because their hearts are weak and cannot pump enough blood to meet their bodies’ oxygen needs.

Smoking

Tobacco smoke lowers blood oxygen levels due to its carbon monoxide content, and nicotine causes the body to release the stress hormone adrenaline. The two can be equally stressful to the cardiovascular system. Also, cigarette smoking elevates blood pressure and damages the blood vessels, thus leading to cardiovascular problems.

Medications

Heart patients frequently use calcium and beta blockers or thyroid drugs that may slow or speed up their heart rate. Consult your doctor about the link between the medications you’re taking and your heart rate.

Reasons Why a Healthy Resting Heart Rate Is Very Important

Increases in resting heart rate are associated with worse cardiovascular health across all age groups, sexes, and ethnicities. This elevated rate can cause heart complications and, ultimately, death if unchecked.

The heart plays a crucial role in life, distributing oxygen and nutrients throughout the body. For this reason, maintaining a low resting heart rate is essential to heart health maintenance.

How to Lower Your Resting Heart Rate

Taking care of your heart is essential since it has been linked to a lower resting heart rate, which is connected to better cardiovascular health.

Here are some suggestions for how to lower your resting heart rate:

Try to Get Some Extra Exercise

Research shows that a decrease in resting heart rate can be achieved through nearly all forms of physical activity. However, endurance training like dancing, riding, and walking daily is good for your heart health. Avoiding the elevator in favor of the stairs can also help. Strength training isn’t the only activity where endurance training can pay dividends.

Yoga is another exercise that might help reduce your resting heart rate. In fact, one study also showed that the best outcomes for lowering resting heart rate were seen in individuals who included endurance training in their yoga sessions.

Manage Your Emotions

A higher resting heart rate is one of the physiological effects of stress, worry, wrath, and other negative emotions. A particularly trying circumstance triggers a series of unfortunate events. Adrenaline, a hormone released by the body, produces a temporary increase in breathing rate, and blood pressure, thus increasing your heart rate.

While there may be a correlation between stress and a high resting heart rate, which has been linked in some studies to low socioeconomic status and bad health, improving one’s socioeconomic standing is not always possible.

However, other aspects of your life will likely also affect your stress levels. Therefore, it is crucial to be forthright about the times and causes of stress to find the best solution for every situation. In other words, find your stress triggers and eliminate or avoid them.

Refrain from Using Caffeine or Tobacco Products

Caffeine, found in coffee and other caffeinated beverages, can raise blood pressure and heart rate. Having more than three cups of coffee can significantly lower your heart rate.

Caffeine increases your resting heart rate and makes your heart rate fluctuate more frequently during the day. Your heart rate rises during caffeine digestion and decreases subsequently, generating a cyclical increase and decrease in heart rate with each caffeine dose you take.

Your heart rate will slow down when you smoke tobacco. In addition to raising the risk of cardiovascular disease and death, smoking also increases the heart rate during rest. Also, studies have shown that ex-smokers have a slower resting heart rate. Quitting smoking is a good idea, but if your resting heart rate is abnormally high, it’s an absolute must.

Keep Yourself Hydrated

Especially with physical activity, dehydration can raise the body’s resting heart rate. The resultant rise in core body temperature can also impact the individual’s HRV. Be mindful of your body temperature and drink plenty of water if needed. Do yourself a favor and always have some water on hand to drink when you feel warm.

Consider the Temperatures

As core temperature rises, so does the risk of a heart rate rise. Reduce stress and maintain a healthy heart rate by ensuring a comfortable temperature in your home, bed, and bath. Also, if you plan to be outside, pack some water and weather-appropriate clothing.

Verify Your Medications

Sometimes it takes time for patients to experience the adverse effects of a drug. Some drugs, for instance, have been linked to increased heart rates at rest. Discuss your medications and resting heart rate with your doctor if you’re worried about potential adverse effects.

They will be able to advise you on whether or not you should continue taking the drug, as well as suggest alternatives and possible adjustments to the dosage.

Conclusion

Knowing how to lower your resting heart rate is the beginning of living a healthy life. Start by exercising and making other lifestyle adjustments to reduce your resting heart rate. Excellent targets for improvement include maintaining an adequate water intake, lowering stress levels, and giving up tobacco products. Please visit a doctor immediately if your resting heart rate is over 100 or if you experience pain or shortness of breath when exercising. You can also let them know whenever you have a low heart rate.