28 Aug 2021

Resting Heart Rate in the Forties

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Having a low resting heart rate is an indicator for cardiovascular health and fitness. It suggests the heart is strong and can pump a lot of blood with every beat, thus it does not have to beat as frequently. Your physical fitness is directly correlated to the strength of your heart.

The National Health Service says most adults have a resting heart rate between 60 and 100bpm. The fitter you are, the lower your resting heart rate is likely to be. For example, athletes may have a resting heart rate of 40 to 60bpm, or lower.

I figured it would be a good challenge to see if, notwithstanding my tendency to live life at a fast pace, I could achieve a low resting heart rate in the forties, at the age of 40.

My heart rate is not naturally particularly low and so reducing it to within the forties presented a significant challenge. I’ve been experimenting on myself over the past few months to see what affects my heart rate and how it can become lower.

The three factors that seemed to help me personally achieve a low heart rate were as follows:

  • 1. High level of fitness
  • 2. Good diet 
  • 3. Sufficient rest

If any one of these are not present, my resting heart rate would be relatively higher.

The three main factors that seemed to drive my resting heart rate up were as follows:

  • 1. Drinking alcohol 
  • 2. Overtraining and doing late night workouts 
  • 3. Stress

Below are some pictures that illustrate the dramatic effect consuming alcohol had on my resting heart rate. You can effectively see which night I drank alcohol, as my resting heart rose significantly.

Needless to say, to complete this challenge I had to consider not drinking any alcohol at all or (living in a dry country helped).

When I am calm, well-rested and relatively still my heart rate now drops into the 40s fairly regularly but this is only momentary and not my actual resting heart rate as you can see in the below screenshot from the Garmin Connect App.

My current heart rate was 43 beats per minute but my resting heartrate was 60 beats per minute.
43 BPM is the lowest I’ve recorded my current heart rate at. 03/05/2021

I did managed to achieve a daily resting heart rate in the forties a number of times over a four month period so this shows it is not a one off freak occurrence.

The below screenshots cover the period from early May to mid-August 2021:

The lowest daily resting heart rate I achieved was 44 beats per minute on 4th July 2021.

To take this challenge one step further, I am trying to achieve a 7-day average resting heart rate in the forties.

I’ve had my 7 day average resting heart rate it as low as 51 (see below) but invariably something gets in the way like a late night or a hard training session and as these things raise the hard rate significantly even one night increases the average and thus prevents me from being able to lower if further.

I think I will be able to achieve a 7 day average resting heart rate when I have completed the Ironman and the marathon and the temperature reduces in Riyadh so I can adjust my training schedule to better achieve it.

I’d also like to see if I can record a heart rate of 40 beats per minute but I reckon it might take some sort of meditative trance to achieve that (and then how will I screenshot the app….?!).

Incredibly on the 2nd of February 2022, exactly one month after I consumed the last alcohol at Heathrow Airpirt before I flew back to the middle east and began ‘Dry January’ I managed to achieve a resting heart rate of 40 beats per minute as per the below screenshot from the Garmin connect app (no meditative trance required):

#40s440

I am still aiming for a weekly average heart rate in the forties and currently my average is 51 beats per minute so guess if I keep on doing what in doing it may well get there!

…and then on the 5th of February 2022, after a week of low resting heart rate and no drinking alcohol, I finally achieved my additional goal of a ‘Resting Heart Rate in the 40s’ over a 7-day average.

The 7 day average for my resting heart rate continued to drop while I was on leave from work to as low as 47 but it subsequently returned to the low 50s after my return to work and associated travel.

The watch I used was a Garmin 245, like the one on this link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07RCJV4PT/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=cjburgoine-21&camp=1634&creative=6738&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B07RCJV4PT&linkId=b5e43d6842b72d7a6282b5e376f02801

    25 Jun 2021

    Get 40 winks more often

    by | posted in: Uncategorized | 88

    I’ve got a friend who is a Policeman. He reckons I should take a vacation, relax and sleep more often but I can’t right now… he said I’m ‘resisting a rest’!

    For anyone who doesn’t know, ‘Getting 40 winks’ means to have a light sleep or a nap. Like how to wink means to close an eye, we might close it for ~40 times longer than that to just ‘rest our eyes’ but actually have a quick rest. I heard Einstein used to take such rests say up in an armchair with a spoon in his hand. If he got into too deep a sleep the spoon would drop on the floor and wake him up. There’s loads of research on line and I’m no expert but there seems to be a consensus that about 20 minutes in the middle of the day is optimal for most people.

    I didn’t used to take any rests. I didn’t like it, waste of time. Why would I want to lie down feeling frustrated when I’m wide awake and wanting to be doing stuff?

    I might have gone back to bed for one reason or another but a siesta, no way! This also translated to lying on a beach for an afternoon. Sure, I want to swim or surf or dive or fly a kite but simply lying there drives me insane. It happened once when I was inebriated but I woke up sun-burnt and full of regret.

    ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead’ was the cocky phrase adolescent me would coin.

    So ‘getting 40 winks more often’ presented quite a challenge for me. I had come to appreciate that that not sleeping enough generally was causing me some issues. Often I would feel a bit run down or have bad skin and be irritable and my athletic performance might be poor yet this was resolved by a good night’s sleep. I therefore reconciled that if I could manage the occasional top-up, this may also help.

    This was highlighted throughout my 40 day fast. During that time, I found that between 10 and 12 hours after I’d first woken up (at 04:40), I became super sleepy and often actually needed a lie down. I quite like the feeling of compete exhaustion, needing to switch off and allowing yourself to do so but it’s not something I naturally succumb to very often and it was likely exacerbated by the early morning and the fasting.

    To that end, I found that training in the morning helps encourage me to sleep in the afternoon, whereas training only in the evening seemed to leave me with a slightly elevated heart rate and alertness that was hard to shake in time for getting a proper sleep that evening.

    Upon reflection, what I had been afraid of was sleeping a little, reinvigorating myself and then finding it difficult to fall asleep at night so addressing this is key.

    Indeed, the answer could be as simple as this: eat less, wake up earlier.

    I went to the Doctor this week to discuss my fingers remaining numb from the 40 hour cycle three weeks ago and pain in my left heel. It seems I have bilateral ulnar nerve neuropathy and plantar fasciitis, the onset of which is common for those in their 40s who run long distances (old age does not come alone!).

    He and I discussed getting 40 winks. The Doctor said that our natural rhythms tend toward a routine that is at odds with how we modern life currently is. He said for example working in the morning and then having a two hour break between 12 and 2pm would be ideal. If you led with your feet up during that time, any fluids that have been ‘stuck’ down there are brought back into a more central location (pressure change due to centre of gravity changing) and are processed by the kidneys. You will likely waking up after about 40 minutes needing the toilet; following this process will leave you refreshed and revitalised.

    I reckon resting with my feet up for 40 minutes in the afternoon could be very beneficial, not least for my plantar fasciitis.

    Anyway, I’ve been doing it. The 2020 and 2021 lockdowns have made it easier to be or at least more likely that I will be at home and therefore that little bit more likely to take a break. I’ve not only enjoyed it, I think it has become essential. I think it is possible to restore better balance by taking short naps between a solid nights sleep to overcome feeling overworked and being over-tired and needing to crash.

    To this end, I maintain that sleep hygiene is really important. I may now be able to dose on the sofa for a while but getting a quality sleep that includes all the right phases and leaves me refreshed requires proper planning and preparation, consistency and discipline; that’s a whole different story.