Metric
Resting Heart Rate
What's normal for your age, what pushes it up or down, and when a change is worth a second look.
Resting heart rate is one of the oldest and most reliable signals a wearable tracks, but "normal" covers a wide range and shifts with age and fitness. A change in your resting heart rate can come from sleep, alcohol, stress, illness, or training. Here's how to read yours against people like you, and what the research connects to it moving.
What your device actually calls this
Scientific measurementHeart rate, in beats per minute, during a period of genuine rest.
| Device | What they call it | What it actually measures |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Watch | "Resting Heart Rate" | Random samples taken when the accelerometer detects stillness, averaged across the day (may exclude overnight data). |
| Garmin | "Resting Heart Rate" | Lowest 30-minute average heart rate in the last 24 hours. |
| Fitbit | "Resting Heart Rate" | Average heart rate during non-movement periods, including daytime. |
| Oura | "Resting Heart Rate" | Lowest heart rate recorded, generally overnight. |
| Whoop | RHR as a Recovery Score input | Night average, weighted more heavily toward deep sleep. |
| RingConn | "Resting Heart Rate" | Continuous PPG tracking through the day and night rather than a single daily figure. |
| Samsung Galaxy Watch | "Resting Heart Rate" | A validation study against ECG found the Galaxy Watch Active2 overestimated mean heart rate by 3.84 bpm overall, performing better during activity than at rest. |
| Ultrahuman Ring | "RHR" | Overnight PPG tracking, reported as a standalone number rather than folded into a composite. |
| Coros | "Resting Heart Rate" and "Heart Rate Recovery" | RHR is a daily figure; Heart Rate Recovery separately measures how fast heart rate drops in the two minutes after exercise, a feature not every brand reports. |
| Amazfit | "Resting Heart Rate" | Overnight tracking via the BioTracker sensor, feeding both PAI and the Readiness Score. |
| Polar Vantage | "Resting Heart Rate" | Measured via the Precision Prime dual-sensor system, the same hardware behind Polar's published HRV research. |
Every device here uses the same name, "Resting Heart Rate", but the underlying windows and averaging methods differ enough that the same person's RHR reading can differ by several bpm between devices worn on the same day. Not because one is wrong, but because they're not measuring the same time window in the same way.
Device measurement accuracy: Uncertain · on the Research DeskHow each device actually shows this
Apple Watch
"Resting Heart Rate"
Garmin
"Resting Heart Rate"
Fitbit
"Resting Heart Rate"
Oura
"Resting Heart Rate"
Whoop
RHR as a Recovery Score input
RingConn
"Resting Heart Rate"
Samsung Galaxy Watch
"Resting Heart Rate"
Ultrahuman Ring
"RHR"
Coros
"Resting Heart Rate" and "Heart Rate Recovery"
Amazfit
"Resting Heart Rate"
Polar Vantage
"Resting Heart Rate"
See every device →
Sources: Assembled from device-specific technical sources (Garmin, Apple, Fitbit support documentation) cross-referenced against independent wearable-methodology reviews, since no single manufacturer publishes a direct side-by-side comparison.
The benchmark
Resting Heart Rate
Resting Heart Rate by Age: Normal Ranges Explained
The typical ranges by age and sex, and how to read yours.
See how you compareExample result
Woman ยท 72 bpm
a little above the average
from 92,457 adults
More on Resting Heart Rate
Resting Heart Rate Suddenly Higher? What the Studies Actually Measured
The large studies linking resting heart rate to risk measured a persistent level over years, not a jump this week. What that does and does not tell you about a sudden rise.
How to Lower Resting Heart Rate: Aerobic Training Leads
Higher resting heart rate tracks with cardiovascular mortality even inside the normal range. Aerobic training lowers it most consistently, by no fixed amount.
Faster Resting Heart Rates Go With Higher Death Risk
Each 10 bpm faster resting heart rate went with 9% higher death risk across 1.2 million people. Fitness explains only part of it.
How Wearables Measure Resting Heart Rate: What the Research Actually Found
What counts as resting depends on each device's sampling window, and that window is rarely disclosed. Which is why two watches disagree about the same night.
A Faster Resting Heart Rate Goes With an Older-Looking Brain
A higher resting heart rate tracked with an older MRI-predicted brain age in a large longitudinal cohort, independent of chronological age.
What a Low Resting Heart Rate Actually Means
Research measuring resting heart rate against self-reported risk-taking found a curved pattern: moderate levels tracked the lowest risk-taking, not low ones.
What Resting Heart Rate Actually Says About Type 2 Diabetes Risk
A prospective cohort study and meta-analysis found resting heart rate independently predicts type 2 diabetes risk, even in people who look metabolically fine.
Can Your Wearable Catch Illness Before You Feel Sick?
A wearable model flagged infection risk about two days before testing confirmed it, and up to six. How often it manages that, and in whom, is not established.
Do GLP-1 Drugs Like Ozempic Raise Your Resting Heart Rate?
In one 12-week wearable study, resting heart rate rose after starting a GLP-1 drug even as weight fell. How far it rises, and whether it settles, is not known.
A More Stable Day-to-Day Heart Rate May Signal Recovery
A study of children after surgery found recovery tracked with resting heart rate becoming more predictable day to day, not simply lower.
Does Alcohol Raise Your Resting Heart Rate While You Sleep?
A smartwatch study measured nocturnal resting heart rate rising from 63.6 to 66.6 bpm on drinking nights. Sleep architecture did not change.
Resting Heart Rate Fell in Norway, Rebounded in Belfast
In Norway, average resting heart rate fell 8.7 bpm in men and 11.9 in women over 22 years. In Belfast students it fell, then rose from the 1980s.
What Does a High Resting Heart Rate Actually Predict?
Elevated resting heart rate is usually framed as a heart-disease marker. Four studies in unrelated disease populations found it predicts mortality anyway.
Does Lowering Your Heart Rate Help You Live Longer?
Beta-blockers cut heart failure deaths 27% in sinus rhythm and none in AFib. No evidence here covers people without heart disease.
Can Your Smartwatch See High Blood Pressure Coming?
Watches can't measure blood pressure directly, but a year-long study found their HRV and activity data predicted who developed hypertension.
Why Your Resting Heart Rate Reads High at Night
A wrist device's worst measurement condition is lying still: one validation study found a 2.56 bpm overestimate specifically at rest.
What Is a Good Resting Heart Rate for a 40 or 50 Year Old?
In US national data, the median resting pulse is 68 bpm for men aged 40 to 59 and 71 for women. The full range, why it barely changes with age, and what a higher number is linked to.
What Is a Good Resting Heart Rate for a 60 or 70 Year Old?
In US national data, the median resting pulse is 67 bpm for men aged 60 to 79 and 70 for women. Why night-time heart rate, the number a watch records, carried the most information in one study of 55 to 75 year olds.
Is a Resting Heart Rate of 45 Too Low?
A resting heart rate of 45 is lower than about 95% of adults. The cardiology guideline that flags rates under 50 says the number alone is not a diagnosis. What changes that.
Other metrics