Normal resting heart rate: ranges by age, and what moves yours

What is a normal resting heart rate?

Your resting heart rate is the number of times your heart beats in a minute while you are awake, calm and still. It is the heart doing its quietest everyday work: keeping blood moving when nothing is asking for more.

For adults, a normal resting heart rate is usually between 60 and 100 beats per minute, according to the British Heart Foundation. MedlinePlus, the health site of the US National Library of Medicine, gives the same span for adults and for children from about 10 years old.

That span is wide on purpose. It has to hold a marathon runner in Riyadh, a new father in Dubai who has not slept through the night in weeks, and a grandmother in Al Ain. All three can be healthy, and all three can sit at very different points inside it.

The British Heart Foundation describes a resting rate above 100 as too fast for most people, and calls it tachycardia. It describes a resting rate below 60 as too slow for most people, and calls it bradycardia. Neither word is a diagnosis on its own. Both describe a number, and what the number means depends on the person, how they feel and what else is going on.

Resting heart rate by age: how does it change through life?

The heart beats fastest at the start of life and slows through childhood. A 2011 systematic review in The Lancet by Fleming and colleagues pooled 69 studies with heart rate data for 143,346 healthy children. The median rate rose from 127 beats per minute at birth to a peak of about 145 at one month, then fell to 113 by the age of two.

MedlinePlus gives these usual resting ranges by age:

The Fleming review also found that the ranges in many older guidelines disagreed with the real data for children, sometimes by a lot. For a child, the paediatrician’s reading of the whole picture matters far more than any single row in a table.

In adults the picture is flatter. A 2020 study in PLOS ONE by Quer and colleagues followed the daily resting heart rate of 92,457 adults in the United States who wore a wrist tracker, over a median of 320 days each. Average resting rates rose slowly through adult life, peaked at around the age of 50 and then fell a little. Women sat slightly higher than men at every age.

Why do healthy people have such different resting heart rates?

The same PLOS ONE study gives the clearest answer so far. Across the 92,457 people, the average resting heart rate was 65.5 beats per minute. But each person’s own average ranged from about 40 to 109.

Age, sex, body mass index and average sleep together explained only about 10 per cent of those differences between people. The rest came from things the study could not see: genes, fitness, medicines, health conditions, and simply how each body is built.

The British Heart Foundation gives one of those reasons: women’s hearts tend to be slightly smaller and pump a little less blood with each beat, so they beat slightly more often. In the Quer study, 95 per cent of women had an average between 53 and 82, and 95 per cent of men between 50 and 80. The overlap is large.

The practical point is simple. Two people of the same age, sex and size can differ by 20 beats per minute or more, and both can be well. That is why a table of averages is a blunt tool for any one person.

How much does your resting heart rate change from day to day?

Less than the differences between people. In the Quer study, the median change in one person’s resting rate from week to week was about 3 beats per minute. About 80 per cent of people never had a week in which their rate moved by 10 or more.

The other 20 per cent did, at least once, over about two years. The study could not see what caused them; a week like that is not rare.

The study also found a gentle seasonal pattern of about 2 beats per minute across the year, lowest in late July and highest in early January. Those were American seasons. The Gulf year is different, and the heat side of it is covered below.

This is the reason a personal baseline works. Your own usual level is fairly steady, so a change against it stands out, even when the number is still well within 60 to 100.

Is a low resting heart rate a concern?

Often it is not. The British Heart Foundation notes that a slow heart rate can be usual for people who are very fit, such as athletes. MedlinePlus gives 40 to 60 beats per minute as usual for well-trained athletes. A strong, trained heart pumps more blood with each beat, so it needs fewer beats at rest.

A low resting heart rate becomes something to discuss with a doctor when it is new, when it keeps falling without a reason such as more training, or when it comes with symptoms. The British Heart Foundation advises making an appointment with your GP if a slow heart rate comes with fainting or tiredness, and names feeling faint or dizzy as a reason to get checked.

Some medicines slow the heart too. The British Heart Foundation notes that a slow heart rate can come from certain medicines, such as beta blockers. If you take one and your readings change, that is a conversation for your doctor, not a reason to change the dose yourself.

What makes resting heart rate go up?

The British Heart Foundation lists many everyday causes of a faster heart rate: exercise, smoking, alcohol, infections and fever, being dehydrated, anxiety and stress, some medicines including some asthma medicines, and conditions such as an overactive thyroid or anaemia.

Most of these are temporary. A fever or a late night with a big dinner can lift the next resting reading by several beats, and it comes back down within days.

Sleep

Sleep and resting heart rate move together. In the Quer study, people who slept about 7 to 7.5 hours a night had the lowest average resting rates, and rates were higher among those who slept much less or much more. Our guide to falling asleep faster in a hot city covers the night itself.

Stress

Stress raises heart rate in the moment, and the British Heart Foundation includes anxiety and stress among the causes of a fast pulse. A demanding week can show up as a resting rate that sits a few beats higher than usual. Our guide to finding the quiet hours in a loud week looks at the working-day side.

Heat

In the heat, the body moves more blood to the skin to lose warmth. A 2015 review in Comprehensive Physiology by Crandall and Wilson describes the heart’s output rising up to twofold under heat stress, mainly through a faster heart rate. The WHO’s fact sheet on heat and health notes that the strain of cooling the body also stresses the heart. More on this below.

How do you measure your resting heart rate?

You need only a watch with a second hand or a phone timer. MedlinePlus describes where to feel the pulse and how to count; the first and last steps keep one reading comparable with the next.

1. Sit or lie down and stay still for a few minutes first, so the reading is a resting one.
2. Place your index and middle fingers on the inside of the opposite wrist, below the base of the thumb, and press gently until you feel the pulse.
3. If the wrist is hard to find, use the soft hollow at the side of the neck, just beside the windpipe, and press gently.
4. Count the beats for one full minute, or count for 30 seconds and multiply by 2.
5. Note the number with the time of day, and measure at the same time and in the same position next time.

Readings taken at the same time and in the same position are the easiest to compare. A quiet moment you can repeat, such as just after waking, makes that simpler.

A wearable does the counting for you, often during sleep, when the body is at its most still and the conditions are similar from night to night. The British Heart Foundation notes that heart rate monitors can help you keep track of your health but cannot diagnose a condition.

Can exercise lower your resting heart rate?

Yes, on average, and it is one of the best-studied effects of exercise. A 2018 meta-analysis in the Journal of Clinical Medicine by Reimers and colleagues pooled 191 studies of healthy people. Every type of sport it looked at lowered resting heart rate. Endurance training and yoga lowered it clearly in both women and men.

The same analysis found larger falls in people who started with a higher resting rate, and in younger participants. The change takes weeks of regular activity, not one session.

For how much activity, the Saudi Ministry of Health, in line with WHO guidance, recommends that adults aged 18 to 64 do at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week, or at least 75 minutes of vigorous activity, or a mix of the two. In the Gulf, that usually means the early morning or the evening for much of the year. See the best running routes in Dubai and walking tracks in Riyadh for places to do it.

Why does resting heart rate matter over the long term?

Researchers have followed resting heart rate in very large groups for many years. A 2016 meta-analysis in CMAJ by Zhang and colleagues pooled 46 studies with more than 1.2 million people. Across those groups, each 10 beats per minute higher at rest was linked with about 9 per cent more deaths from any cause over the study periods.

The authors were careful about what that means. They found signs that studies with stronger results were more likely to have been published, and after correcting for that, the figure fell to about 4 per cent. They also noted that resting heart rate is affected by many factors and that results differed between studies.

These are averages across huge groups over many years. They do not describe what will happen to any one person, and a single reading is not a forecast. What they do show is why doctors take a note of the resting rate, and why a lasting change in yours is worth mentioning at your next check-up.

How does resting heart rate relate to HRV?

Heart rate variability, or HRV, is the small change in time between one heartbeat and the next. A 2017 review in Frontiers in Public Health by Shaffer and Ginsberg defines it as the fluctuation in the intervals between neighbouring heartbeats, and puts it simply: a healthy heart is not a metronome.

The two measures are linked. The same review explains that a faster heart rate leaves less time between beats for those intervals to vary, which lowers HRV, and a slower rate leaves more room, which raises it. So a night with a higher resting rate often comes with lower HRV.

Read side by side against your own usual levels, they give a fuller picture than either alone. Our guide to listening to your resting heart over time explains why a trend over a week or more says more than one night.

What moves resting heart rate in a Gulf year?

Life in the UAE and Saudi Arabia has its own rhythm, and it reaches the heart as it reaches everything else.

Summer. From June to September, the heat asks the heart to help the body cool, as the Crandall and Wilson review describes. That is one reason your readings may sit higher in the hottest months. Our guide to what 46 degrees does to your body explains why.

Hot nights. Warm bedrooms make for lighter sleep, and short sleep goes with a higher resting rate in the Quer study. Sleeping through a Gulf summer covers what helps.

Ramadan. Meal times, sleep and drinking all shift for a month. Changes in your readings during the fast are expected. See how Ramadan changes your sleep.

Late nights and busy seasons. Weddings, long dinners in the cooler months and year-end deadlines all touch sleep and stress, and so the resting rate. A few higher nights after a celebration are ordinary life.

When should you see a doctor about your heart rate?

The British Heart Foundation advises speaking to a doctor if your heart rate is consistently fast, slow or irregular, especially if you also feel faint or dizzy. It also advises seeing a GP if a slow heart rate comes with fainting or tiredness. MedlinePlus adds resting rates that stay above or below the usual range for your age, and a pulse that is irregular or hard to find.

Some signs need help straight away. Chest pain, severe breathlessness or fainting are emergencies. In the heat, the NHS lists a fast heartbeat with a very high temperature, hot skin that is not sweating, fast breathing or confusion among the signs of heatstroke that need an ambulance. In the UAE, the ambulance number is 998.

A wearable can show you that something has changed. It cannot tell you why. If a change worries you, take the readings with you to the appointment; they give your doctor a useful starting point.

Resting heart rate at a glance

Glossary

Resting heart rate. The number of heartbeats per minute when you are awake, calm and still.

Beats per minute (bpm). The unit for heart rate.

Pulse. The beat of blood through an artery that you can feel at the wrist or neck; it usually matches the heart rate.

Bradycardia. A resting heart rate below 60 beats per minute. It can be usual in fit people.

Tachycardia. A resting heart rate above 100 beats per minute.

Heart rate variability (HRV). The small change in time between one heartbeat and the next, usually reported in milliseconds.

Baseline. Your own usual level of a reading, built from many days measured the same way.

Palpitations. A heartbeat you suddenly notice, such as pounding, fluttering or skipping.

More on heart and stress

• Listen to your resting heart: why your HRV trend says more than one night
• How to reduce stress at work: find the quiet hours in a loud week

Where does Sisly fit?

Sisly is a titanium ring or band that reads sleep, energy, stress, heart rate variability, activity and skin temperature against your own normal, the approach this article describes. It is AED 999, paid once, with no subscription, and a charge lasts about 7 days. Sisly is available to pre-book.