What Is Normal Heart Rate?
How Anorexia Affects A Healthy Heart Rate

Normal heart rate in anorexia and other eating disorders isn’t often attainable due to malnutrition. Because anorexia and other eating disorders can affect a healthy heart rate, it's important to establish a baseline and know what "normal" means. That way you're able to detect any changes if they occur. A normal heart beat is key to cardiovascular health.

Normal heart rate is the number of times your heart beats in a minute, while you are at rest. Typically this can range anywhere from 60 to 100 beats per minute (bpm).

It's generally assumed that a lower number is an indication that your cardiovascular fitness is pretty good.

Super-fit, well-trained athletes usually have a lower heart rate, and this is because the higher your fitness level, the fewer times your heart needs to contract. In other words, it doesn't have to work as hard.

As you become more fit, both your resting heart rate and exercising heart rate will drop by approximately 20 to 30 beats per minute. This can go a long way to decreasing the workload on the heart and improving overall health.

Normal Heart Rate Range And Resting Heart Rate

Do you want to know how to measure your resting heart rate? It's pretty straight forward :) To calculate your normal heart rate range, the best time to do it is while you're at rest, or ideally as soon as you wake up in the morning, and before you even stand up.

Before you begin, keep in mind that there are a few situations that can affect a normal resting heart rate. In other words, these things could influence the numbers a little. Some are within your control, and other are not, but they're still things to consider:

• Your current fitness level
• Whether you're standing up or lying down
• Air temperature
• How tall you are - body size
• Stress levels and emotional state
• Medications
• Your age
• Genetics - heart conditions within the family

Ready to begin? Put your index and middle fingers on the underside of your wrist, at the base of the thumb. Once you can feel your pulse, count the number of pulsations for a full minute. If you prefer, you can just count the number of beats during a 15 second period and multiply by 4.

The number you come up with is your normal heart beat. You can even do this "test" several times throughout the week and take an average.

So, if this indicates a healthy heart rate, what happens in cases of anorexia nervosa or other eating disorders? Well, there can be potentially fatal complications as a result of having a low heart rate.

---------------
Like what you just read? Let us know! Log into your Google account, then click on the "+1" below.
---------------