Your Resting Heart Rate Isn’t the Same As Your Sleeping Heart Rate—Here’s What They Can Tell You About Your Health
Read on to find out what each measurement means, and what you can do to improve them.
- Christine Kingsley, APRN, advanced practice registered nurse at the Lung Institute
- Jeffrey M. Tyler, MD, cardiologist at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in California
- Majid Basit, MD, cardiologist at Memorial Hermann Medical Group in Texas
Resting heart rate vs. sleeping heart rate
You might think that your pulse, or heart rate, is one simple number, but the truth is, there are different ways to take your heart rate, and they can tell you different things about your health.
What is a resting heart rate?
Your resting heart rate is how much blood your heart is pumping when you are at rest, not exercising, per the American Heart Association. This is the least amount of blood your heart is pumping while you're awake. Many factors can affect your resting heart rate, including the temperature, the way you're sitting, your emotions, certain medications, and whether you are very active (often athletes have low resting heart rates, but we'll talk more about that later).
What can your resting heart rate tell you about your health?
“Your resting heart rate reflects how hard your heart works when you’re quietly sitting and relaxed. This measurement generally reflects your overall level of health and fitness,” says Jeffrey M. Tyler, MD, a cardiologist at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in California.
The best time to take this all-important measurement is first thing in the morning or right before bed when you’re relaxed. “Don't measure your resting heart rate when you’re anxious or under stress. You also won’t get an accurate reading within one hour of strenuous exercise,” says Majid Basit, MD, a cardiologist with Memorial Hermann Medical Group in Texas. If you want to help your heart rate come back to baseline, consider doing a breathing exercise.
Multiple other factors affect resting heart rate, including age, weight, and fitness level. “People who participate in regular moderate to intense exercise such as running, swimming, and other aerobic activities, will on average have a lower resting heart rate. This is because exercise strengthens the heart muscle and allows it to work more efficiently, requiring fewer beats per minute,” says Dr. Tyler.
It can also depend on your overall health. “Medications such as beta-blockers, and certain health conditions, including thyroid disease, can also impact upon resting heart rate,” adds Dr. Basit.
What is a normal heart rate?
Heart rate is measured in the number of beats per minute (BPM). According to the American Heart Association, a healthy resting heart rate for adults ranges from 60 to 100 BPM. If you have consistent RHR readings that exceed that range, your heart may be working harder than it should.
How does resting heart rate vary by age?
According to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, average heart rate tends to steadily decrease from infancy to young adulthood, then remain relatively consistent from young adulthood to older age.
For people born male, heart rate decreases from about 128 beats per minute when they’re babies to about 72 beats per minute in the later teen years. After that, the average adult male heart rate holds pretty steady at about 71 beats per minute.
People born female see a similar trend, but their heart rates are a bit higher on average, starting at about 130 beats per minute, dropping to about 79 beats per minute in the late teen years, and then holding steadily around 74 beats per minute throughout adulthood.
"Exercise strengthens the heart muscle and allows it to work more efficiently, requiring fewer beats per minute.”—Jeffrey M. Tyler, MD
What is a sleeping heart rate?
A sleeping heart rate is just what it sounds like—your heart rate when you're sleeping. Even if you experience your heart racing at night when you get in bed, as you fall asleep, your heart rate gradually slows to its resting heart rate in light sleep. When you slip into a deep sleep, your heart rate will slow even further—about 20 to 30 percent below your resting heart rate.
What can your normal sleeping heart rate tell you about your health?
According to Dr. Basit, a normal sleeping heart rate in adults ranges from 40 to 100 BPM. “It's important to not be alarmed if you’re using a heart rate tracker and it shows a lower heart rate while you’re sleeping. Sleeping heart rate is also a good way to track your daily heart rate since it’s not affected by factors like pain, stress, and anxiety,” he says.
Sleeping heart rate fluctuates throughout the night, based on the stage of sleep you’re in. Dreaming can also have an impact. “Sleeping heart rate encompasses the entire trend of heartbeats, as one cycles through different sleep stages. It’s varied and unpredictable because it can drop lower than your resting heart rate and then spike upwards, depending on brain activity,” says advanced practice registered nurse Christine Kingsley, APRN, of the Lung Institute.
Your body cycles through REM (rapid eye movement) and non-REM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep four to five times a night. When you fall asleep you enter non-REM (light sleep). “During non-REM sleep, the decrease in the body’s core temperature and the relaxation of muscles in the body causes heart rates to drop by around 20 to 30 percent less than the resting heart rate,” says Kingsley.
Your sleeping heart rate continues to fall as you enter deeper stages of sleep. “While we sleep, the body relaxes, and our body temperature drops. Our nervous system switches from a fight-or-flight system to a system that focuses on energy conservation and system repair. Our built-in pacemaker can sense these changes and tells the heart to beat slower,” explains Dr. Basit.
Once you start dreaming, though, your sleeping heart rate may spike. “When the body enters REM sleep, where dreams occur, the heart rate increases in response by rising to the same level as when the body is awake and active. This spike basically reflects the level of activity in the dream, so if you're running in your dream, you'll have a runner's heart rate at that point of your sleep,” explains Kingsley.
So, when it comes to comparing your resting heart rate vs. sleeping heart rate, generally your sleeping heart rate will be a bit lower—and since it's not affected by heart rate spikes from stress and anxiety, it may give you a better picture of health when also taking into account your resting heart rate.
Why is my sleeping heart rate higher than my resting heart rate?
If you're using a sleep tracker to track your sleeping heart rate, and noticing that it is consistently higher than your resting heart rate, your body could be working harder than it needs to during sleep. Sleep, fitness, and wellness tracking company Oura points out that strain on your body could result in higher than normal sleeping heart rate. Strain could include being overtired from a hard workout, having high levels of cortisol in your system (from prolonged stress and anxiety), or being sick. Other factors that can affect your sleeping heart rate are eating close to bedtime (so your metabolism has to work harder while you sleep), drinking alcohol (you can read about how alcohol increases heart rate here), exercising late in the evening, obstructive sleep apnea, or even being overtired.
If you're concerned about your sleeping heart rate and think stress could be playing a role, you might also want to check out stats on your heart rate variability.
How to properly take your resting heart rate
All of that said, you might wonder how to best take your resting heart rate. Since emotion and activity both spike heart rate, to get an accurate reading, take your resting heart rate when you’re relaxed, and your body and brain are still. You can use a heart rate monitor, fitness tracker, or other verified device. (As mentioned, some wearable devices will also track your sleeping heart rate if you wear them at night.)
For a more analog method, you can also take your pulse with these steps provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
- Find the radial pulse on the artery of the wrist, located under the thumb pad
- Place the tips of your index and middle fingers over the artery, while pressing lightly
- Take a full 60-second count of your heartbeats
- You can also count your heartbeats for 30 seconds and double that number
- Start counting on a beat. The first beat is counted as “0”
You can see how it looks to take your pulse correctly with these illustrations from the Mayo Clinic.
Can you improve your heart rate?
"Studies have shown that a higher resting heart rate can increase the likelihood of developing heart disease and even of dying early in life, so it’s important to improve this health marker if you’re able to,” says Dr. Basit. Good words to live by. Literally.
Just like any other muscle, you can improve your heart by working it. And no, that doesn’t mean falling in and out of love. It does mean exercising regularly and aerobically if you’re not already doing so. Dr. Basit recommends fitting in sustained, regular exercise for 30 to 45 minutes each day.
“I have had patients that run triathlons with sleeping heart rates of 30 beats per minute and resting heart rates around 40 beats per minute. While we don't all aim to become elite athletes, we should strive to become more knowledgeable about our health and try to make our bodies into healthier, more efficient machines,” he says.
Reducing or managing stress, and eating heart-healthy food, can also help lower both resting and sleeping heart rates. Some factors like stress can send your heart racing, so it's good to know how to slow down your heart rate with some quick in the moment tips like breathing exercises. “Good sleep hygiene like avoiding caffeine close to bedtime, going to sleep the same time every night, and avoiding bright lights late at night all help to promote a lower sleeping heart rate,” says Dr. Basit.
—reviewed by Jennifer Logan, MD, MPH
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