You can measure your heart rate by pressing two fingers against an artery where it runs close to the skin, most commonly at your wrist or neck, and counting the beats for 60 seconds. A normal resting heart rate for adults falls between 60 and 100 beats per minute (bpm). Beyond the manual method, wearable devices and chest straps offer continuous tracking with varying levels of accuracy.
Checking Your Pulse at the Wrist
The wrist is the easiest and most reliable spot to check your own pulse. Turn one hand so your palm faces up, then find the groove between your wrist bone and the tendon on the thumb side. Place the tips of your index and middle fingers from your other hand into that groove and press lightly until you feel each beat. Don’t use your thumb, which has its own pulse that can confuse the count.
Press gently. Pushing too hard can actually compress the artery and make the pulse harder to detect. Once you feel a steady rhythm, count the beats for a full 60 seconds. A quicker option is to count for 15 seconds and multiply by four, though the full minute gives a more accurate number, especially if your rhythm feels irregular.
Checking Your Pulse at the Neck
Your carotid artery, which runs along each side of your neck next to your windpipe, produces a strong pulse that’s easy to find. Place your index and middle fingers in the groove just beside your windpipe and press lightly. This spot works well when you need a quick reading during exercise, since the pulse there tends to be more prominent than at the wrist.
One important rule: never press on both sides of your neck at the same time. Compressing both carotid arteries simultaneously can reduce blood flow to your brain and cause dizziness or fainting.
Getting an Accurate Resting Reading
Your resting heart rate is the number that matters most for tracking your cardiovascular health over time, but getting a true resting number requires the right conditions. Caffeine raises heart rate, and the effect is more pronounced at higher intake levels. Consuming more than 400 mg daily (roughly four cups of coffee) has been shown to elevate heart rate and blood pressure even after rest. Wait at least an hour after drinking coffee or tea before checking.
Avoid measuring within one to two hours after exercise or a stressful event, since both keep your heart rate elevated well after you feel like you’ve calmed down. Also, don’t take the reading after you’ve been sitting or standing for a long period without moving. The best approach is to check your pulse first thing in the morning, after you’ve been awake for a few minutes but before you get out of bed or reach for your coffee.
How Wearable Devices Track Your Pulse
Smartwatches and fitness trackers use green LED lights pressed against your skin to detect your heart rate. Blood absorbs light more strongly than surrounding tissue, so as blood flow pulses through the tiny vessels in your wrist with each heartbeat, the sensor picks up changes in how much light is reflected back. The device translates these fluctuations into a beats-per-minute reading.
This optical method works well for resting measurements and general activity tracking, but it has limits. Movement, sweat, darker skin tones, and wristband looseness can all interfere with the light signal. During high-intensity exercise, wrist-based sensors sometimes lag behind or miss rapid changes in heart rate, particularly during interval training where your pulse spikes and drops quickly.
Chest Straps vs. Wrist Sensors
Chest strap monitors use small electrode pads that detect the electrical signals your heart produces with each beat, the same principle behind a hospital ECG. This method achieves roughly 99% accuracy compared to medical-grade equipment, making chest straps the preferred choice for serious athletes and anyone who needs precise heart rate data during intense workouts.
Wrist-based optical sensors are more convenient since you’re already wearing a watch, but they sacrifice some precision for that comfort. For everyday health tracking, walking, or moderate exercise, a wrist sensor gives you a good enough picture. If you’re training with specific heart rate zones or tracking recovery intervals, a chest strap delivers more reliable data.
Other Pulse Points on Your Body
Your body has eight common arterial pulse points beyond the wrist and neck. You can feel your pulse at your inner elbow, behind your knee, on top of your foot, and at your temple, among other locations. These are useful when the wrist or neck isn’t accessible, such as during a medical emergency or when checking circulation in a specific limb.
Healthcare providers sometimes check your apical pulse, which is the pulse heard directly over your heart using a stethoscope placed at the bottom tip of your heart on the left side of your chest. Unlike arterial pulse points, the apical pulse reveals not just your heart rate but also your heart rhythm and the strength of each beat. Comparing the apical pulse to the wrist pulse at the same time can uncover a “pulse deficit,” where fewer beats reach your wrist than your heart is actually producing. This gap can signal conditions like atrial fibrillation, heart valve problems, or weakened heart muscle.
What Your Resting Heart Rate Tells You
For adults 18 and older, a resting heart rate between 60 and 100 bpm is considered normal. Athletes and people who are very physically active often have resting rates in the 40s or 50s, because a well-conditioned heart pumps more blood per beat and doesn’t need to beat as frequently. If you don’t exercise regularly, your resting rate is more likely to sit toward the higher end of the normal range.
Children have faster resting heart rates than adults. Newborns range from 100 to 205 bpm, toddlers from 98 to 140 bpm, and school-age children from 75 to 118 bpm. By adolescence, the range narrows to the adult standard of 60 to 100 bpm.
Tracking your resting heart rate over weeks and months is more useful than any single reading. A gradual decrease over time usually reflects improving fitness. A sudden or sustained increase from your personal baseline, without an obvious cause like illness or stress, is worth paying attention to. Your resting heart rate also varies naturally with sleep, hydration, and even the temperature around you, so look for trends rather than fixating on any one number.
Estimating Your Maximum Heart Rate
Your maximum heart rate is the ceiling your heart can sustain during all-out effort, and it’s used to calculate training zones for exercise. The most common formula is simple: subtract your age from 220. A 40-year-old, for example, would have an estimated max of 180 bpm. A newer formula (207 minus 70% of your age) was developed to better account for how maximum heart rate declines with age, particularly in older adults.
In practice, both formulas produce similar results for most people, and studies comparing them have found no significant difference in fitness outcomes when used to guide exercise programs. These are estimates, not exact numbers. Your true maximum heart rate is genetically influenced and can only be precisely determined through a supervised stress test. For general fitness purposes, either formula gives you a useful starting point for setting workout intensity.