Taking a pulse is straightforward: you press two fingertips against an artery close to the skin’s surface, count the beats you feel, and multiply to get your heart rate in beats per minute. The wrist is the easiest spot for most people, but the neck, temple, and top of the foot also work. A normal resting heart rate for adults falls between 60 and 100 beats per minute.
The Wrist (Radial Pulse)
The inside of your wrist, on the thumb side, is the most common place to check a pulse on yourself or someone else. The artery runs through a shallow groove right next to the wrist bone, making it easy to feel.
If you’re sitting, bend your elbow to about 90 degrees and rest your forearm on a table or armrest with your palm facing up. If you’re lying down, let your arm rest flat across your lower chest or stomach. Place the tips of your index and middle fingers (or your index, middle, and ring fingers) on the inner wrist, just below the base of the thumb. You should feel a groove between the tendons and the bone.
Press down gently until the pulse disappears, then slowly ease off the pressure until you feel a clear, steady throb under your fingertips. You may need to flex or extend the wrist slightly to find the strongest signal. Don’t use your thumb to take a pulse. Your thumb has its own pulse, which can mix with the one you’re trying to measure and throw off your count.
The Neck (Carotid Pulse)
The carotid pulse is useful when the wrist pulse is too faint to feel, which sometimes happens during exercise, in cold weather, or in people with low blood pressure. Place two fingertips on the front of your neck, just below the jawline, in the soft groove beside your windpipe. You’ll usually feel this pulse more strongly than the wrist because the carotid artery is larger.
Press lightly. Too much pressure on the carotid artery can slow your heart rate and make you dizzy, so use just enough force to feel the beat. Only check one side at a time; pressing both carotid arteries simultaneously can restrict blood flow to the brain.
Other Pulse Points
Several other spots on the body have arteries close enough to the surface to feel:
- Temple: directly in front of the ear. Useful for infants or when you can’t access someone’s wrist or neck.
- Inner elbow (brachial artery): the crease of the elbow on the inner side of the arm. This is the same spot used when taking blood pressure with a cuff.
- Top of the foot: the groove between the first and second toe tendons, on the upper surface of the foot. Doctors check this spot to assess circulation in the legs and feet.
- Behind the ankle bone: just below and behind the bony bump on the inner ankle. Also used to evaluate blood flow to the lower leg.
How Long to Count
For the most accurate result, count beats for a full 60 seconds. Most nursing textbooks recommend this duration, and it’s especially important if the rhythm feels uneven, because shorter counts can miss or overcount irregular beats.
If you’re short on time and the rhythm feels steady, count for 15 seconds and multiply by four, or count for 30 seconds and multiply by two. A 15-second count is a reasonable shortcut for a quick check during exercise, but keep in mind that any counting error gets multiplied too. Missing one beat in 15 seconds means your final number is off by four.
What to Pay Attention To
You’re checking three things: rate, rhythm, and strength.
Rate is simply the number of beats per minute. Rhythm is whether the beats arrive at even intervals, like a steady drumbeat, or whether they skip, cluster, or feel unpredictable. A normal pulse feels like a metronome: once you find the pattern, you can anticipate the next beat. With an irregular rhythm, the timing between beats varies, and some beats may feel stronger or weaker than others. Holding your breath for a few seconds can help you focus, since breathing naturally causes small fluctuations in heart rate that might confuse you.
Strength refers to how forceful each beat feels under your fingertips. A pulse that’s barely detectable (sometimes called “thready”) or one that feels unusually bounding can both be worth noting.
Normal Resting Heart Rate by Age
Heart rate norms vary significantly by age. Children’s hearts beat faster than adults’ because their hearts are smaller and pump less blood per beat.
- Infants (1 to 12 months): 80 to 140 bpm
- Toddlers (1 to 3 years): 80 to 130 bpm
- Preschoolers (3 to 5 years): 80 to 110 bpm
- School-age children (6 to 12 years): 70 to 100 bpm
- Adolescents and adults: 60 to 100 bpm
The standard adult range of 60 to 100 is a broad window. Research published in the AHA journal Hypertension suggests a more practical upper limit for healthy adults may be closer to 85 bpm at rest, particularly for men. Well-trained athletes often have resting rates in the 40s or 50s because their hearts pump more blood with each beat.
A resting rate consistently above 100 bpm is classified as tachycardia. A rate below 60 bpm is called bradycardia, though in fit individuals this is usually normal and not a concern.
What Can Throw Off Your Reading
Your pulse isn’t a fixed number. It shifts throughout the day based on what your body is doing, and several common factors can temporarily raise or lower it:
- Caffeine: coffee, tea, and energy drinks stimulate the nervous system and can elevate heart rate and blood pressure. For the most accurate resting measurement, avoid caffeine for at least two hours beforehand.
- Physical activity: even light movement like walking up stairs raises your pulse. Sit quietly for at least five minutes before taking a resting reading.
- Stress and anxiety: emotional arousal triggers the same fight-or-flight response as physical exertion, pushing your rate up.
- Temperature: a warm environment or fever tends to speed the heart up, while cold exposure can slow it down. A room temperature between about 68°F and 77°F gives the most reliable resting measurement.
- Medications: some cold medicines, asthma inhalers, and thyroid medications raise heart rate, while blood pressure drugs and beta-blockers lower it.
For a consistent baseline, take your pulse first thing in the morning, before getting out of bed, on several different days. That gives you a reliable resting number to compare against over time.
Checking Your Pulse on Your Chest
If you’re specifically trying to assess your heart’s rhythm rather than count a rate, placing your hand directly on your chest can make irregularities easier to detect. Sit down, lean slightly forward, and press your right hand flat against the left side of your chest. Adjust your hand until you feel the heartbeat most strongly under your fingertips. A regular rhythm will feel predictable. An irregular rhythm will feel chaotic, with beats arriving at unexpected intervals and with varying force. This method is particularly helpful for people monitoring for atrial fibrillation.
Measuring Heart Rate Recovery
If you exercise regularly, your pulse can tell you something about your cardiovascular fitness through a measurement called heart rate recovery. The idea is simple: the faster your heart slows down after intense effort, the healthier it tends to be.
To calculate it, note your heart rate at the moment you finish the hardest part of your workout (not after a cool-down). Then sit or stand still for exactly one minute and check your heart rate again. Subtract the second number from the first. For example, if your peak heart rate was 170 and one minute later it dropped to 140, your heart rate recovery is 30 bpm. A drop of 12 bpm or less at the one-minute mark is considered slow and may be worth discussing with a doctor. Most healthy adults see a drop of 15 to 25 bpm or more.