The women's fitness blog

Your resting heart rate is how many times your heart beats per minute. The measurement should be taken when you are laying down and breathing normally and most health professionals say it is best to check it in the morning after a good nights sleep.

The heart rate is often used as a measure of a persons physical fitness and as such it is good to measure it now and again.

A resting heart rate for women is considered “normal” if it is between about 70-80 beats per minute.

What affects your resting heart rate?

The resting heart rate is affected by:

• age
• sex (men are lower usually)
• physical fitness
• some drugs/medication
• genetics
• anxiety

Some people simply have a higher/lower resting heart rate that cannot be attributed to any specific cause. Many scientific studies have shown that a resting heart rate really isn’t an effective way of measuring the health of a person although they say anything above about 84 beats per minute is erring on dangerous.

A better measurement of physical fitness

I would like to argue, however, that a much better method of checking your physical fitness is to measure your heart rate after exercise and see how long it takes to get back to resting rate. This is called the recovery rate and is much more important when looking at how fit you are.

Target heart rate

When exercising some people like to know how fast their heart should be beating to maximize their weight loss or fitness potential. I have never really been interested in all that though as it seems like an overly complicated exercise. I know when I’m making progress.

Lowering Blood Pressure

Blood pressure is also an indication of a healthy heart and something older people should pay attention to. A lot of people want to know how to lower their blood pressure and this clinically proven device is one such way. Doctors recommend the Respirate Duo blood pressure lowering device as one of the best methods on the market.

Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease

Finally I would like to suggest some further reading. There are many books about the heart but Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease is the most important. Dr. Esselstyn conducted the biggest research and came up with the most accurate results. If you want to learn about how the heart works and what you can do to lengthen your life by protecting the heart then this book is for you. I suggest anyone who is over 40 reads it