Your sleeping heart rate might be higher than your resting heart rate, indicating a potential underlying health issue, which could be due to factors affecting your body while you're asleep.
Understanding Resting and Sleeping Heart Rates
Before diving into the reasons, let's differentiate between the two:
- Resting Heart Rate: This is your heart rate when you are awake, calm, and at complete rest. For most adults, this falls between 60 and 100 beats per minute (bpm).
- Sleeping Heart Rate: This is your heart rate when you are asleep. Typically, it should be lower than your resting rate as your body enters a relaxed state.
Potential Reasons for Elevated Sleeping Heart Rate
According to research, an elevated sleeping heart rate may be linked to several conditions. Here's a detailed look:
Sleep Disorders
- Sleep Apnea: This condition causes breathing interruptions during sleep. These interruptions lead to a drop in oxygen levels, forcing your heart to work harder to compensate, which results in a higher heart rate.
- Other Sleep-Related Disorders: Various other sleep disorders can disrupt normal sleep patterns and impact heart function.
Cardiac Issues
- Arrhythmia: An irregular heartbeat can manifest during sleep, causing fluctuations in heart rate, and could result in a higher average during sleep.
Other Factors
| Factor | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Medications | Certain medications can affect your heart rate. |
| Stress & Anxiety | Stress and anxiety can lead to increased heart rate both while awake and asleep. |
| Illness/Fever | If you are sick or have a fever, your heart rate will likely be elevated as your body combats the illness. |
| Environmental factors | Room temperature and humidity can affect heart rate during sleep. |
What Should You Do?
If your sleeping heart rate is consistently higher than your resting rate:
- Consult a Doctor: It is important to consult a healthcare professional who can assess your overall health and determine the cause of the higher heart rate.
- Track Your Heart Rate: Monitoring your heart rate over a few nights can provide valuable data for your doctor.
- Consider a Sleep Study: If sleep apnea is suspected, a sleep study could be beneficial in diagnosing the issue.
It's crucial to address this issue because, according to the provided reference, a sleeping heart rate exceeding normal ranges might signal an underlying issue such as sleep apnea, arrhythmia, or another sleep-related disorder.
