What Your HeartBeat Says About Your Health

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heart-rate myth: low resting heart rate

Popular belief: The lower your resting heart rate, the better.

Reality: Normal resting heart rates vary widely and may be genetic. The average resting heart rate for an adult is 72 beats a minute, but a rate as low as 40 may be normal in athletes.

“Your physical condition determines your resting heart rate,” says Robert Otto, Ph.D., director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Adelphi University in New York. But it’s not necessarily safe to assume that a low resting heart rate is always a good sign. A resting heart rate lower than 60 beats a minute is good if you’re healthy and physically fit, but it also can indicate a disease.