To check your pulse, place the tips of your index and middle fingers on the inside of your wrist, just below the base of your thumb, and press lightly until you feel a steady beat. Count the beats for 30 seconds, then double that number to get your heart rate in beats per minute. A normal resting heart rate for adults falls between 60 and 100 bpm.
Finding Your Pulse at the Wrist
The wrist is the easiest and most reliable spot to check your own pulse. Turn your hand so your palm faces up. Find the groove between the wrist bone and the tendon on the thumb side of your wrist. Place the tips of your index and middle fingers from your other hand into that groove.
Press lightly. You want just enough pressure to feel each beat, but not so much that you block blood flow. If you press too hard, you’ll actually lose the pulse. Use your fingernails as a guide: if they’re blanching white from pressure, ease up. Never use your thumb to check a pulse, because your thumb has its own strong pulse that can interfere with the count.
Checking a Pulse on the Neck
The carotid pulse on the neck is stronger and easier to find in emergencies or when the wrist pulse is too faint to feel. To locate it, place your index and middle fingers on your neck, roughly at the midpoint between your earlobe and chin. You’re feeling for the artery that runs just to the side of your windpipe, below the jawline. Press gently against the muscle there.
Check only one side at a time. Pressing on both carotid arteries simultaneously can reduce blood flow to the brain and cause dizziness. This location is especially useful when checking someone else’s pulse during a medical emergency, since the carotid artery carries a large volume of blood and produces a beat you can feel even when circulation is weak.
Counting and Calculating Your Heart Rate
Once you’ve found the pulse, watch a clock or start a timer. Count each beat you feel for 30 seconds, then multiply by two. That gives you your beats per minute. If you’re in a hurry, you can count for 10 seconds and multiply by six, though the 30-second method is more accurate because a single miscount throws the total off by less.
For the most reliable reading, sit still for at least five minutes before checking. Take your pulse first thing in the morning, before coffee or exercise, if you want a true resting heart rate. Checking at the same time each day gives you a consistent baseline to compare against.
What a Normal Pulse Feels Like
A healthy pulse beats at a steady, even rhythm with a consistent strength to each beat. You should feel a clear tap under your fingers at regular intervals. Each beat should feel about the same as the last, like a metronome.
Pay attention to three things beyond just the number: the rhythm (regular or irregular), the strength (strong and easy to feel, or faint and hard to detect), and the speed. A pulse that feels weak and thready, almost like you have to search for it, can signal low blood pressure or dehydration. A pulse that feels unusually forceful and bounding can indicate high blood pressure, fever, or intense exertion.
Normal Heart Rate Ranges by Age
Heart rate varies significantly with age. Babies and young children have much faster pulses than adults because their hearts are smaller and need to beat more often to circulate the same volume of blood relative to their body size.
- Newborns: 100 to 160 bpm
- Infants (0 to 12 months): 70 to 170 bpm
- Toddlers (1 to 3 years): 80 to 130 bpm
- Children (3 to 10 years): 70 to 120 bpm
- Adolescents (11 to 14 years): 60 to 105 bpm
- Adults (15 and older): 60 to 100 bpm
Endurance athletes often have resting heart rates well below 60 bpm. A study published in Circulation found that 38% of endurance athletes had heart rates at or below 40 bpm, and this was well tolerated with no symptoms. A very low resting heart rate in a trained athlete reflects a more efficient heart that pumps more blood per beat. Current guidelines suggest that in the absence of symptoms like fainting or dizziness, a low heart rate in athletes doesn’t need treatment, though rates below 30 bpm may warrant evaluation regardless.
What Can Affect Your Results
Your pulse is not a fixed number. It shifts throughout the day based on what your body is doing. Caffeine triggers the release of stress hormones that can raise your heart rate and blood pressure, especially in people who are sensitive to it or who already have a tendency toward fast heart rhythms. Exercise, anxiety, pain, dehydration, and fever all push the rate up. Sleep and relaxation bring it down.
Many medications also alter heart rate. Beta-blockers, commonly prescribed for high blood pressure, slow the pulse. Decongestants, asthma inhalers, and some thyroid medications can speed it up. If your pulse seems unusually fast or slow and you’re taking any of these, the medication is a likely factor. Knowing your personal baseline makes it much easier to recognize when something has changed.
Recognizing an Irregular Pulse
An irregular pulse feels like the rhythm stumbles. You might notice a beat that comes too early, followed by a longer-than-normal pause, as if your heart skipped. Occasional skipped beats are common and usually harmless, often triggered by caffeine, stress, or poor sleep. Most people experience them from time to time without realizing it.
A persistently irregular rhythm is different. If the beats seem randomly spaced with no pattern, this can indicate atrial fibrillation, a condition where the upper chambers of the heart quiver instead of contracting in an organized way. Atrial fibrillation affects the pulse in a distinctive way: the beats vary in both timing and strength, so some feel strong and others feel faint, with no predictable pattern between them.
A resting pulse consistently above 100 bpm (without obvious cause like recent exercise) or below 60 bpm (in someone who isn’t an athlete) is worth noting. When a fast or slow pulse comes with dizziness, lightheadedness, chest pain, fainting, or shortness of breath, those symptoms together suggest the heart isn’t pumping effectively. If you can’t feel a pulse at all, and the person is unresponsive and not breathing, that’s cardiac arrest, which requires calling emergency services and starting CPR immediately.
Checking Someone Else’s Pulse
The technique is the same whether you’re checking your own pulse or someone else’s. For another person, the neck is often the better choice because it’s easier to access and produces a stronger signal. Have the person sit or lie down, then place your two fingers on the side of their neck beside the windpipe. In an emergency where someone has collapsed, checking the carotid pulse for no more than 10 seconds tells you whether the heart is still beating and whether CPR is needed.
For infants under one year old, neither the wrist nor the neck works well. Instead, press gently on the inside of the upper arm, between the elbow and shoulder. The artery there (called the brachial pulse) is closer to the surface in babies and much easier to feel than the carotid.