Cover A resting heart rate of 58 or 72 means little in isolation. Here’s what you should really be asking—and it’s something your smartwatch can really help with (Photo: Unsplash)
A resting heart rate of 58 or 72 means little in isolation. Here’s what you should really be asking—and it’s something your smartwatch can really help with (Photo: Unsplash)
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Your watch gives you a resting heart rate every day, usually with little explanation. Here’s what the number can tell you
Your watch hands over a resting heart rate every morning, usually without a word of explanation. Somewhere between the steps and the sleep score on your smartphone’s health app, you will find a number labelled “resting heart rate” (RHR). Perhaps yours is 58 beats per minute; someone else’s may be 72. It is tempting to assume that whoever has 58 is winning.
There is some truth in that. Regular aerobic training tends to lower RHR, and endurance athletes can sit well below 60. Still, the number is most useful as your own trend line; as a league table, it tells you very little.
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Begin with “normal”
RHR is simply how many times your heart beats each minute while you are calm and at rest. The American Heart Association considers 60 to 100 beats per minute (bpm) normal for most adults, and says a lower rate is not always a cause for concern. Stress, hormones, medication and how active you are can all move it.
The range covers a lot of ground, yet large studies suggest the number carries real information. A meta-analysis of 46 studies, covering more than 1.2 million people, found that the risk of dying from any cause rose steadily as resting heart rate climbed. Studies of this kind describe groups, not personal targets. A low reading can reflect fitness, genes or medication, and an unusually slow pulse can occasionally accompany a heart-rhythm problem.
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Learn your own baseline
A check-up gives a doctor one reading on one day. A wearable gives you hundreds, across months and years. In one of the largest studies of its kind, researchers at Scripps Research analysed nearly 33 million daily readings from 92,457 American adults who wore Fitbit trackers—a self-selected group of device owners, as the authors acknowledge. The average was 65 bpm , but individual averages ran from 40 bpm all the way to 109 bpm. Within any one person, the number stayed far steadier, typically shifting by only about three beats across a week. The researchers concluded that individuals have a resting heart rate that is “normal for them”, which makes departures from that personal range potentially informative.
This is where the number starts to earn its place on your wrist. Someone who usually sits around 72 bpm may learn more from a week’s reading at 82 bpm than from hearing that a friend sits at 58 bpm.
Over the years, the trend matters too. In the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study of 15,680 people, a rise in resting heart rate between check-ups roughly three years apart was linked with higher risks of death and heart failure, although the reasons behind a rise vary widely.
A jump is a clue, not a verdict
An individual’s RHR reacts to a great deal. In a study of 28,175 people who took a morning reading on a smartphone app—about nine million measurements in all, and co-authored by the app’s developer—heavy drinking and illness each raised it by about six per cent on average, a few beats for most people. Hard training and the menstrual cycle moved it by only one to two per cent.
Because so many things move the number, a higher-than-usual reading tells you that something has changed and nothing about what. It might be last night’s drinks, the start of an infection, a heavy week of training, hormones, a new medication or poor sleep. One odd morning deserves context before concern; a pattern that repeats deserves more attention.
Different watches calculate “resting” differently
Brands do not agree on how they calculate “resting”. Apple combines background heart-rate readings with movement data. Garmin, by its own description, uses the lowest 30-minute average across 24 hours. Oura looks only at the night and reports both an average and a lowest value. Trends of your own RHR from one device are therefore the safest guide. If you swap watches or rings and your number shifts overnight, part of the change may be arithmetic rather than physiology.
As a signal, RHR is worth watching: it is simple, measured constantly and, at rest, reasonably well captured by many wearables. Learn roughly where yours sits, notice sustained departures and resist grading every beat. If it turns persistently much faster or slower than usual, particularly alongside dizziness, fainting, chest pain or shortness of breath, take it beyond the watch and to a healthcare professional.
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Kristine Fonacier is a widely published journalist and author, covering lifestyle, business, politics and travel. She was the editor in chief at the Philippine editions of Esquire and Entrepreneur, and the founding editor of Grid magazine. At Tatler, she was previously the regional editor for T-Labs, Power & Purpose and Asia’s Most Influential.
