Did you know that some doctors believe that you only have so many heart beats in a given lifetime? They even go as far as to say that exercising decreases your life span. The reason some doctors believe that exercising decreases your life span is due to the fact that exercise increases your heart rate. If you only have so many heart beats in your lifetime, could these doctors’ argument hold weight?

I doubt it. Even if you only had so many heart beats in a lifetime, how frequently does a person really exercise? A healthy individual may exercise for 30 minutes every day. This would equate to 210 minutes per week, or 3 ½ hours. A normal resting heart rate beats at around 60-100 beats per minute. A person who exercises frequently will most likely stay at the bottom end of the normal resting heart rate range, and some will be even lower than that, possibly in the 40’s. I wouldn’t necessarily argue against the notion that you may only have so many heart beats in a given life time, but I would argue against the notion of exercise being bad because of its ability to increase your heart rate. An active individual who exercises for 30 minutes per day may have an increased heart rate for that whopping total of 3 ½ hours per week, but they are also enjoying the benefits of a lower resting heart rate for the remainder of that time in a given week. This would come to a total of 164 ½ hours per week of a lower resting heart rate. Exercise isn’t sounding so horrible now, is it?

Not only is exercise good for lowering your resting heart rate, but it has many other benefits as well. It can lower your risk of many of our top killers in the United States, such as heart disease and diabetes. It has also been known to lower blood pressure and cholesterol. Can a person over-exercise and cause damage to their body? Of course, but you should practice everything in moderation. I would much rather enjoy my life and live it to the fullest instead of sitting on a sofa counting the number of heart beats I have left in my life time.

-Tom