Five of the best health monitoring devices
You can record your heart rate manually by holding your wrist and counting your pulse, but this hasn't stopped technology companies producing devices to do the job with electronics. Most of these devices collect heart data all day long and record it on a smartphone app which builds up a richer set of data than you might get with a stopwatch and pencil. One of the most useful metrics they collect is your RHR (resting heart rate) a reading taken when you are relaxed, most typically first thing in the morning. In most cases a low RHR indicates a strong, healthy heart which has to beat fewer times to circulate blood around the body. However in older people a low RHR might indicate diseased heart muscle or overmedication. Some day-to-day variation in your RHR (or indeed in many of the metrics these devices measure) isn't something to be worried about, explains Dr Satpal Arri of the British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence, King's College London, "A certain amount of variability is normal, healthy in fact - as you get older variability tends to decrease." So by all means listen to your heart, but don't become obsessed.
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