High Pulse Rate And Heart Disease

According to a recent article published on MSNBC, Guys, These 7 Quick Checks Could Save Your Life, there was a very useful statistic regarding heart rate. According to researchers in Italy, having a resting heart rate (pulse) over 70 bpm (beats per minute) increases your risk of dying of heart disease by 78%. If you stop and think about that, this is a statistic that will get your attention.

A resting heart rate is the rate at which your heart beats while you are at a complete rest. The best time to check this is in the morning after a good night of sleep and before you get out of bed. Another time to check it would be after meditation or a relaxing massage. Any time where your body is at a resting state is where you will find your resting heart rate (resting pulse).

The heart generally beats around 60 to 80 times a minute. This is the heart rate or pulse that we all hear about. The terms are usually interchanged but basically they mean the same thing. Your resting heart rate is dependent upon your age, your activity level and how much stress you have residing in your body. You can strongly influence what your heart rate or pulse rate is by exercising regularly and getting bodywork done on yourself such as massage to help you release built up stress in your body.

Unfortunately, most of us do not even know what our pulse rate is. We go through our days hoping that everything is ok and if we feel sick or out of whack, we then schedule an appointment to see a doctor. By then, we could have already taken steps to lower our pulse rate but for some reason, in our culture, we do things backwards. Most people have a pulse rate that is very high and many have a pulse rate that is in the 90's or even 99 and above. When you get into the range of 99, you are entering dangerous territory with your life and your health.

For most of my life, my pulse was probably very high but I didn't realize it. Every time I went to the doctor, they would check it and even though it was high, it always was attributed to the fact that I have a big fear of doctors. My anxiety level goes through the roof the moment I walk into a doctor's office. However, even though my pulse showed that it was high, no one figured it out for most of my life. In the following blog posts, you'll quickly see how I learned about it and what I did to work on it.


1) Finger Pulse Meter, Know What's Going On

2) Why Is My Pulse High?

3) The Pulse Of Autonomic Arousal



The biggest thing you can do to help yourself is knowing where your pulse is at. That is why I bought the Finger Pulse Oximeter. Ok, I know that sounds like an advertisement and it is, but it is also what really helped me. This little pulse meter allowed me to begin checking my pulse at different times of the day or night and I was surprised at just how high my pulse was for most of my day. Even at a time of rest, it would remain around 99 bpm. Once I knew that my pulse was high, I could begin working on it. Until that point, I was not even aware or conscious that it was.

Since this time, my pulse now stays down around the higher 60's to lower 70's. It isn't exactly as low as I want it to be but going from 99 bpm pulse rate down to 70 is a big improvement. I am continuing to make changes in my life to help improve this and to better my overall health. Of course, until I started to measure my pulse, I had no way to know just how dangerously I was living. I urge anyone reading this to begin checking their pulse frequently and see where you are at. Once you do that, you too can take appropriate actions to help reduce your pulse rate and improve your health.



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The Pulse Of Autonomic Arousal

The past several weeks and especially the past few days, I've been under a tremendous amount of stress. I could feel it building up within me. The overall tension in my body was building and making it difficult to just enjoy living in my body. My nerves were on end and I could feel an overall agitation knowing that there were many things to get done and not enough time to do them in. I felt the pressures of the world, of daily life, responsibilities coming down on me as well as things that various people were expecting me to get done.

It seemed like no matter what, finding a moment of peace was almost as difficult as finding a four leafed clover. Yet, I longed for peace, for rest and even just some tranquility in my life. It had been far too long because I had been just pushing myself hard and for good reason.

Then I grabbed my pulse meter and went into my massage room to just give myself a moment of saying, this is my time. I didn't care what I had to do at that moment, but I just wanted some time of rest for myself. The pulse meter of course showed exactly what I felt in my body with my pulse being around 110 beats per minute. Of course, I've been down this road and so I didn't freak out from fear of my pulse being so high.

As I went into my body and connected with all the shaking, tremors and movements, I began to feel some pain and the tension really deep within me. It was at that moment, that my body began to violently shake and move almost as if the movements were coming from deep within my core. I allowed this to take place and just road it through as a surfer riding a wave. For I knew that at some point, it would dissipate and subside. It was potential energy that needed to get released. My body continued to twist and turn with moments of extreme shaking and movements then letting go and sinking down in to the table.

My pulse after a few minutes had come down from 110 to 103 which is still high but an improvement. Than as I continued to lay there listening to the relaxing sounds I had going, my pulse slowly began to come down to around the low 90's. Again, that is still a high pulse and shows that there is autonomic arousal in my nervous system. The best thing would be for me to go further into this but the time doesn't permit me to do this at the moment.

The feeling though of my body at 110 bpm and then at the low 90's felt like a nice wave of relaxation to me. It felt refreshing and welcoming to me. It gave me a breath of fresh air knowing that I could drop my pulse down and dissipate some of the stored energy that was locked up in my body. Tomorrow, I will do more with this and drop it further but for now, I'll just enjoy the feeling of my body coming down and letting go and traveling deeper into relaxation, rest and peace.


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