How to Monitor Your Heart Rate Manually

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By eHow Contributing Writer

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Your heart rate or pulse is the rate at which your heart beats, pumping blood through your body. It is a good idea to know how to monitor or check your heart rate. It is especially important for those that have a heart-related disease or want to follow their target heart rate during exercise. Read on to learn how to monitor your heart rate manually.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Step 1

Rest first. To accurately check your resting heart rate, you need to have been seated without any activity for at least 10 minutes.
Step 2

Locate your pulse. There are two common areas to manually check your heart rate. The first and the most accurate is on the inside of your wrist, just below the thumb. Use two fingers to feel the pulse. If it cannot be felt or read at his site then you can check on your neck over the carotid artery, just off the center of your neck.
Step 3

Count the beats once you feel your pulse. The first beat you feel is zero and you count up for a full 30 seconds. Then double the number of beats for your heart rate.

Tips & Warnings

To check your heart rate during exercise, stop in the middle of your exercise program to check and then adjust your activity level accordingly.
Certain medications can interfere with your heart rate, talk to your doctor about monitoring your heart rate and what is normal for you.
Never use your thumb to check your heart rate as it has a pulse of its own.

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