What Is a ‘Normal’ Resting Heart Rate?

You might check your heart rate on your smartwatch or take your pulse during a workout, but aside from measuring your aerobic fitness level, you may not know what those numbers reveal about your overall health.

Your resting heart rate—that’s the number of times your heart beats per minute when you are sitting still or sleeping—is a useful place to start. According to Yale Medicine cardiologist Srijan Shrestha, MD, a typical resting heart rate range falls between 60 to 100 beats per minute.

“Heart rate is just a number. It’s not a condition,” Dr. Shrestha says. “And it is very dynamic. Some people live with a heart rate of 40 to 50 beats per minute and they don’t have symptoms of any kind and feel perfectly fine. But others with that same heart rate might feel tired, and we need to find ways to elevate their heart rate.”

On the other end of the spectrum, someone with a high heart rate—above 100 beats per minute at rest—may have no symptoms at all or could experience palpitations (a fluttering sensation), shortness of breath, and dizziness or lightheadedness.

Simply put, your heart rate is nothing to worry about unless it’s far outside the range (extremely low or extremely high) and is causing symptoms.

Some people naturally have a low heart rate, a condition known as bradycardia. This is often the case with well-conditioned athletes, particularly runners, swimmers, and cyclists. Their cardiovascular system becomes so efficient that each heartbeat pumps more blood, allowing the heart to beat less often.

But for anyone with a heart rate below 60 who is experiencing fatigue, dizziness, or shortness of breath, it’s important to see your doctor. When the heart beats more slowly than it should, it may not deliver enough oxygen-rich blood and nutrients to the body’s tissues. This is particularly concerning if there are symptoms.

To diagnose a heart condition, a doctor may perform an electrocardiogram (ECG) or have you wear a 24-hour heart rate monitor. One potential cause of bradycardia is a condition called sinus node dysfunction, in which the heart’s natural pacemaker—the sinus node—doesn’t consistently produce electrical signals at the right rate. Another reason this can happen is a condition called an atrioventricular block, in which electrical signals don’t pass properly from the top to bottom chambers of the heart.

Certain medications or low thyroid function can also cause bradycardia, and your doctor can address these issues if needed.

A faster-than-normal heart rate is called tachycardia. It can occur for many reasons, ranging from stress or dehydration to underlying medical conditions.

When the blood’s oxygen-carrying capacity drops, the heart compensates by beating faster. This increase in pace helps move the available oxygen more quickly to the tissues that need it.

One common cause is anemia, a condition where there aren’t enough healthy red blood cells to carry oxygen throughout the body.

“With women, this can be related to menstruation and blood loss. In older adults it may come from small bleeds in the gastrointestinal tract or colon cancer,” Dr. Shrestha says. “Shortness of breath, pale skin, and a baseline elevated heart rate can all be signs of anemia.”

Heart rhythm disorders, or arrhythmias, can also lead to tachycardia (and bradycardia as well). Atrial fibrillation is one type of arrhythmia that involves a rapid, irregular rhythm in the heart’s upper chambers; it can reduce the heart’s pumping efficiency and potentially lead to stroke.

Ventricular arrhythmias are abnormal heart rhythms that begin in the heart’s lower chambers, known as the ventricles. Because the ventricles pump blood to the rest of the body, disruptions in their rhythm can be dangerous. Fortunately, both atrial and ventricular arrhythmias can often be detected on an ECG.

For atrial and ventricular arrhythmias, patients may also receive an ultrasound of the heart or echocardiogram to assess the structure and pump function of the heart.

Though many people with arrhythmia know they have a problem because it produces uncomfortable symptoms, others may be unaware. “We sometimes have patients with elevated heart rate but they are completely symptom-free,” he says. “But they might have one of these conditions, which could cause heart failure if it went untreated, so it’s important we identify and treat it.”

Bradycardia can often be treated with medication, which could mean an adjustment to a current medication or a different one altogether. An implanted pacemaker that sends electrical impulses to keep the heart beating at a proper rate is another option.

For tachycardia, doctors may first treat underlying conditions. For example, if someone is anemic, iron supplementation may help; if an overactive thyroid, or hyperthyroidism, is the cause, medications to address this may be prescribed. If there aren’t any clear underlying health problems, your doctor may want to do more tests for any fast or irregular heartbeats, which can start in either the lower or upper chambers of your heart. If you have such arrhythmias, medications including beta-blockers or calcium channel blockers may be recommended.

“Other options include performing a minimally invasive catheter-based study to assess the rhythm of the heart. This is both diagnostic and therapeutic,” Dr. Shrestha says. With cardiac ablation, a catheter is threaded into the heart and either heat or cold therapy is used to correct abnormal heart rhythms.

If you want to measure your own heart rate, you can do so by finding your pulse at your wrist, inside your elbow, on either side of your neck, or on the top of your foot. Dr. Shrestha recommends the wrist because it is the easiest.

Locate the artery on the inner wrist of either arm and place your index and middle fingers on it. Once you feel the pulse, count for 15 seconds and multiply by four. If the beat is irregular, you can also count for 30 seconds and multiply by two—or just count for the full minute.

At the doctor’s office, your medical provider may use a stethoscope to listen to your heart and calculate the heart rate, or use a pulse oximeter, a fingertip device that measures both heart rate and oxygen saturation levels. Most smartwatches also monitor your heart rate as can a monitor worn around the chest.

During exercise or any physical exertion, your heart rate naturally increases. Many athletes track their heart rate zones to gauge workout intensity.

Heart rate zones are commonly based on a percentage of your estimated maximum heart rate. You can estimate this by using this formula: Subtract your age from 220. For a 20-year-old, this yields 200 beats per minute. About 50% to 60% of that (100 to 120 beats per minute) is considered a light-intensity zone, or zone 1, while 90% to 100% (180 to 220) is high intensity, or zone 5.

Ultimately, Dr. Shrestha stresses that heart rate ranges are just guidelines. “If you don’t have symptoms, we’re not generally worried about it. This is true for sinus bradycardia and tachycardia (physiological fast and slow heart rates). Other asymptomatic fast atrial or ventricular arrhythmias would definitely warrant further investigations as these could be due to the result of some underlying heart issues and at times, they themselves can lead to weakening of pump function of the heart or heart failure,” he says.