Have You Ever Checked Your Heart Rate?

What should be your heart rate? How does it help? How to improve your heart rate? You may read further to understand more.

Heart Rate.

The other day, I was climbing one of the small hills in Madurai (located in the state of Tamilnadu, India) along with my friends. While few of us could climb with easier efforts, few struggled a bit, with their breathing strained. Only with adequate breaks, by catching up with their breath, they could climb. Of course, the hill has good and well-structured stairs to climb.

As few got curious, we had a good discussion about heart rate — the functioning of the heart, what’s the accepted heart rate range, how does it work in conjunction with the lungs, and so on.

So, let’s learn the very basics of heart rate.

What is heart rate? Heart Rate is a medical term referring to the number of times our heartbeats per minute.

Why does our “heart” beat? What does it do? Very basically, it does two things. One is supplying the oxygenated/oxygen-rich blood to the entire body, and the other is to send the oxygen-poor blood to the lungs, which oxygenates the blood. And this cycle continues.

What’s the accepted heart rate range? 60 to 100 as per American Hearts Association. If the number is high, the heart does more work. If it is low, the heart’s efficiency is better, to supply oxygen-rich blood to the entire body.

Connection with Lung Capacity? Usually, lungs do not work efficiently in people who are not involved in any physical activities, or in other words, people who don’t do hard breathing, including breathing routines suggested by Yoga. As you may know, most people do shallow breathing at usual times. How much oxygen we can intake from the atmosphere is determined by our inhaling capacity of the lung.

Meaning, the more we can suck atmospheric air into our lungs, the more oxygen it can supply to bloodstreams (oxygen-poor ) that arrive from the heart. The lessor we suck air into our lungs, the lesser oxygen. So, essentially our lung capacity also plays a role in ensuring our entire body gets oxygen-rich bloodstream for better functioning. When we do any workout, our working muscles demand more oxygen, which means the better lungs and heart work together, the better oxygen-rich blood supply to the body and the working muscles.

How to improve or maintain our heart rate? Improve in heart rate means, the lesser number of times it can beat, the better. One way is to get started on physical activities or yogic activities (mainly Asanas and Pranayama). The more consistently we work on them, gives more opportunities for our lungs and heart to work better.

Say you are someone with a heart rate of 80 per se with a lethargic lifestyle (no exercise routines). When you start doing regular exercise routines, your heart rate might get lesser in numbers. How much over what timeline would vary on the individuals. The point is improved heart rate going down the path from 80 to 70 to 60 to 50, and so on. Extreme athletes have a heart rate of up to or around 40.

Over the last ten years of running, my heart rate has gone up to 50 range. That makes me function & live efficiently, and more importantly, making me feel young.

Summary:

So, what should you do? Having knowledge about something enables us to think better. We go to higher planes of living and thinking when we gain more understanding about a subject.

Have you ever checked your heart rate? Please find ways to check your heart rate and see where you are. Depending upon where you are, you may get into doing regular exercise routines to improve the same.

Happy and efficient living to you!

If you have questions, please drop an email to [email protected] I would be happy to either answer questions or write more articles on related topics to contribute better. Cheers.

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Join Disclaimer: This article is not medical advice. The intention is to share this for informational purposes only. This article should never be a substitute for professional medical practitioner’s treatment, analysis, or prescriptions. Never ignore professional medical advice in seeking treatment. Runner-Forever Facebook Group and Runner-Forever Facebook Page, if you are keen to learn more about inspired holistic running and be able to interact with other runners who are on the similar wellness journey.

Originally published at https://vocal.media.