# How fast/slow is your heart rate?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-slow-is-your-heart-rate/980738>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [March 4, 2023, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-slow-is-your-heart-rate/980738 "2023-03-04T22:45:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 9

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**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2023, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-fast-slow-is-your-heart-rate/980738/9 "2023-03-05T00:31:54Z")

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My resting heart rate is 42. Has been for decades. I am 63. Exercising I have gotten up to a heart max of 163 on a heart rate monitor during all out intervals. Probably add two for what is true heart rate max.

My doctor is fine with my heart rate.

FWIW my regular exercise probably is not the cause; I exercise but I’m not doing half Ironmans lately. I think it is just familial high parasympathetic tone, a conclusion supported by the fact that one son also has a resting heart rate in the low 40s. (And does powerlifting more than endurance.)

Lower heart resting heart rate, 50s or less, is associated with greater longevity, and higher shorter life expectancy.

> **[Mid-life resting heart rate of 75 plus beats/minute linked to doubling in...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190415200241.htm)**
>
> A resting heart rate of 75 beats per minute in mid-life is linked to a doubling in the risk of an early death from all causes -- at least among men.

> [@](#):
>
> a resting heart rate of 75+ bpm in 1993 was nevertheless associated with around a twofold higher risk of death from any cause, from cardiovascular disease, and from coronary heart disease, compared with a resting heart rate of 55 or below.
> 
> And a resting heart rate that was stable between 1993 and 2003, when the men were aged 50 to 60, was associated with a 44 per cent lower risk of cardiovascular disease over the next 11 years compared with a resting heart rate that had increased over this period.
> 
> What’s more, every additional beat increase in rate was associated with a 3 per cent higher risk of death from any cause, a 1 per cent higher risk of cardiovascular disease, and a 2 per cent higher risk of coronary heart disease.

You should worry about a low heart rate if you are symptomatic with it. And a resting heart rate over 75 is an alarm bell.

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