Dr Jennifer Grant How do I reduce my resting heart rate?
QI GOT a fitness tracker recently and it says my resting heart rate is between 80 and 90 beats per minute. I am surprised at this because I walk a lot and I do resistance training four or five times a week. I am a woman in my mid-40s. Is this a healthy heart rate? What else can I do to get it down?
AWith the arrival of so many heart rate monitors and fitness accessories, there has been a huge interest in harnessing the technology to our advantage.
It’s great that you are monitoring your resting heart rate because you are correct in assuming this is an important number to target and ideally reduce over time.
It appears you have a relatively higher resting heart rate, above 85-90 beats per minute. Several large population-based cohort studies have shown that lower resting heart rates, as well as peak exercise heart rates (having a lower-than-expected peak heart rate during exercise) may be predictive of overall cardiovascular and coronary heart disease mortality. Essentially, the classical range is considered to be 60-100 beats per minute. So you are still well within the normal range. However, in healthy active individuals, who take regular cardiovascular exercise, you would expect to see a heart rate between 50-60 beats per minute. Most athletes have resting heart rates below 50 beats per minute.
A recent study of resting heart rate gave ranges (defined by 1st and 99th percentiles) between 43 to 102 beats per minute in men and between 47 to 103 in women. So there is a considerable range of normal values even in people of the same age and gender. And remember, similar to blood pressure or your percentage body fat, these ranges tend to creep up a little higher, as we age.
To reduce your resting heart rate, the most important thing is simply increase the level of your cardiovascular exercise.
You mentioned you walk a lot, but you probably don’t sweat during your walk. I suggest you try a couch to 5km run, take up spinning/cycling or join HIIT classes online.
You need to target your heart beat above 100 beats per minute sustained for about 30-40 minutes at least three to four times per week.
Another important thing that will help reduce your resting heart rate is (if you are overweight) try to lose a few kilograms and get your Body Mass Index (BMI) into healthy normal range, which is 18.5-25 for a female.
Remember, similar to your blood pressure or your percentage body fat, these ranges of normal tends to creep up a little higher as we get older
You are involved in weight resistance training which is fantastic for building and maintaining muscle.
Anyone over 30 years old should be involved in resistance training, so try to work on reducing your percentage body fat and increasing your muscle mass. This is really important for healthy aging.
Finally, reduce your resting heart rate by:
■ Reducing your level of stress by using simple breathing exercises or mindfulness techniques.
■ Stopping smoking (if you are a smoker).
■ Increase the amount of hearthealthy fats in your diet by eating more nuts, avocado, olive oil, oily fish or taking omega 3 supplements, which increase the heart-healthy cholesterol in your bloodstream.