Resting heart rate: what does your value say?

General information, not medical advice. If you have palpitations, dizziness, chest pain or a resting heart rate that suddenly changes a lot, contact your GP.

Your resting heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute when you are fully at rest. This article explains how to measure it reliably, what counts as normal and what a low or rising value can mean.

How to measure your resting heart rate

Measure at a calm moment, ideally in the morning after waking, before coffee or moving around. Place two fingers on the inside of your wrist or the side of your neck, count the beats for 30 seconds and multiply by two. A smartwatch or chest strap does the same automatically. Measure on several days in a row at the same time to get a picture of your usual value. A single reading says little: stress, a bad night or a warm room already push your heart rate up.

Compare yourself mainly with yourself. Resting heart rates vary widely between people, depending on age, genes, fitness and medication. A value that is normal for one person can be high for another. What teaches you most is how your own value changes over weeks and months, for example when you start exercising more regularly or have just been through a busy period. Note your readings in a notebook or an app, along with anything unusual such as illness, a hard workout or little sleep.

What is a normal resting heart rate?

According to the American Heart Association, a normal resting heart rate for adults is between 60 and 100 beats per minute. In well-trained endurance athletes it can be around 40. In their case, a low value usually means the heart pumps more blood with each beat. For someone who is not very active and has a slow pulse along with symptoms such as dizziness or fatigue, it is a different story, and talking to your GP makes sense.

Medication such as some blood pressure drugs, caffeine, fever and dehydration also affect your resting heart rate. To see how coffee affects your circulation, read the article on caffeine and blood pressure.

What research says about a high resting heart rate

In the Copenhagen Male Study, researchers followed almost 3,000 Danish men for 16 years. Men with a higher resting heart rate had a higher risk of death, even after the researchers took their fitness into account. It is an observational study in men: it shows a link, not proof that heart rate itself causes the risk. Regular exercise at a calm, sustained pace lowers resting heart rate in many people. Endurance athletes call that pace zone 2, the intensity at which you can still hold a conversation, as the article on zone 2 training explains.

A rising resting heart rate as a signal

If your resting heart rate is clearly higher than usual for several days in a row, it may point to a cold coming on, stress, too little sleep or not enough recovery after hard training. Treat it as a reason to take it easier and sleep well, as in the article on sleep consistency. If the value stays high without a clear reason, or comes with symptoms, have your GP take a look.