What Your Resting Heart Rate Reveals About Your Health

Your resting heart rate, or RHR, is an important indicator of how well your body performs. It can tell whether you are fit and healthy or if any underlying issues may be present. In our medical world, we often detect higher heart rates and the driving factor is someone’s nerves in a medical setting. In Medicine, it is referred to as “White Coat Syndrome.” Although Drs. Rowe and Loftis LOVE their white coat, they work hard to have each person’s heart feel at ease when walking through the doors of Magnolia Place. In women’s health, we focus on the heart for different reasons at each season of life and if you have high cholesterol, then this is particularly crucial no matter your age. At Magnolia Place, we’re more than just an OBGYN Greenville. We believe in women’s comprehensive healthcare. From our experts at Magnolia Place, Greenville women’s wellness center, we’re taking a closer look at what your resting heart rate reveals about your health.

What is a Healthy Resting Heart Rate?

Your resting heart rate will vary depending on your age, gender, physical condition, and state.  Resting heart rate is best measured when you are in a calm, relaxed state of mind and body where no one part of your physiology is challenged. A healthy resting heart rate for adults ranges between 60-80 beats per minute or BPM**.** The older you are, the lower your bpm will be. Women are more likely to be five-ten BPM higher. If you see a higher heart rate, it can be a sign that the body is under stress - be it poor metabolic fitness, a stressful week at work, or just fatigue from a hard training session. At Magnolia Place, we believe in understanding each patient’s physiology and often can tell how a patient feels without her saying a word. Let’s listen to the heart and believe it when it is speaking to you and relaying a message from the mind.
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Sometimes medications or conditions can affect heart rate. Conditions that may cause heart rate abnormalities to include asthma, COVID-19, and heart murmurs. Some of the medications that can impact the heart rate may include asthma medications, antidepressants, cold medicines, and controlled substances. Those in good physical shape tend to have a lower resting heart rate because their hearts don’t have to work as hard to pump blood through their body. If you’re struggling with unhealthy weight gain or weight loss, our Greenville women’s wellness center can work with you to navigate a nutrition and exercise plan.

How Cholesterol Impacts Your Resting Heart Rate

Think about your heart and imagine a pump and a hose.  The faster the pump pushes water through that hose, the higher the “rate” of water you see flowing out of that hose.  Imagine if the hose were kinked or clogged with dirt and debris…what kind of flow would you see come out?  If you have high cholesterol levels, you may notice that your resting heart rate is higher than normal. High cholesterol levels can cause plaque buildup, “debris & dirt” in the arteries, and “the hose” that carries blood from the heart throughout the body. This plaque buildup makes it harder for the blood to flow freely throughout the body, so the heart has to work harder—” pump faster!” causing an elevated resting heart rate. The best way to keep the inside of our vessels, “our hoses,” clean is by reducing the presence of the troublemaker known as cholesterol.  This is directly accomplished through daily nutrition choices and exercise with the support of our  Greenville women’s wellness center. By eating a balanced diet and getting regular activity and exercise, you can ultimately reduce your risk of developing more serious problems.

How to Measure Your Resting Heart Rate

There are many simple ways to monitor your heart rate regularly. For example, you can take your pulse at the wrist or neck with your fingertips in a stationary position. Alternatively, you can purchase a smartwatch or wear a digital heart rate monitor that straps around your chest while exercising. These devices will often provide additional helpful information, like how many steps you have taken per day to assess your level of activity or even better how many calories you have burned. You can also speak to our women’s healthcare Greenville NC professionals for more tips on tracking your heart rate.

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The Benefits of Monitoring Your Resting Heart Rate

In addition to helping detect early signs of potential problems like high cholesterol, keeping tabs on your resting heart rate can also help you recognize when something might be wrong. Irregular heartbeats can often be a sign of anxiety or a warning signaling a potential stroke or heart attack.   If you wear a smartwatch, you can take it a step further with the EKG function where the user can detect a life-threatening heart rate rhythm, and knowledge can be life-saving!  Smartwatches, such as those made by Apple, Samsung, Withings, Fitbit, and others, reportedly have high diagnostic accuracy when it comes to identifying life-threatening rhythms like Atrial fibrillation (Afib). The ECG app on the Apple Watch, for example, was shown to have 99.3 percent specificity for classifying sinus rhythm and 98.5 percent sensitivity for classifying Afib in a clinical trial using 12-lead ECG as the gold standard. women’s healthcare Greenville NC Our Magnolia Place team challenges you to empower yourself with that knowledge. Even if nothing seems amiss right now, regular monitoring will ensure that any changes are quickly identified so that your team at our Greenville women’s wellness center can take appropriate action right away.

Magnolia Place | Greenville Women’s Wellness Center

At Magnolia Place, Greenville women’s wellness center, we believe resting heart rate is important in understanding our overall health and well-being. Now you know a little more about what your resting heart rate reveals about your health! Are you ready to experience and develop a heartfelt relationship with your healthcare? We wish to be as reliable as your heartbeat and are here for you when you need us. We aim to help streamline your healthcare and minimize disruptions in your life to remain consistent with your health and wellness goals. We offer women’s health, primary care, physical and mental health services, and telemedicine to meet your needs. We aim to keep you where you matter most and stop running all over town to your appointments. We understand. We are women taking care of women. That’s why we developed Magnolia Place. Magnolia Place is so much more than just another OBGYN Greenville NC. We’re here to treat the entire you! For more information about our whole-body approach to women’s health, visit our Women’s wellness center website today.