How to lower your resting heart rate

The most reliable way to lower your resting heart rate is regular aerobic exercise. In a meta-analysis of 191 studies, endurance training lowered resting heart rate by about 3 to 6 beats per minute (bpm), and yoga by about 5 bpm. Sleeping 7 or more hours, drinking less alcohol in the evening and giving illness time to clear are associated with a lower night-to-night number.

The long-term baseline moves over weeks to months. Single mornings move for simpler reasons: one evening of drinks was associated with up to 8.7 bpm higher sleeping heart rate in a study of 4,098 adults. This guide covers both, with the size of each effect and how to check that it works for you. For the normal ranges by age and sex, start with the resting heart rate by age chart.

Why lower your resting heart rate at all?

A lower resting heart rate within the normal range is associated with better long-term outcomes in large studies. A meta-analysis of 46 cohort studies and about 1.2 million people found that each 10 bpm higher resting heart rate was associated with a 9% higher risk of death from any cause, and an 8% higher risk of cardiovascular death.

That is an association across populations, not proof that pushing your own number down adds years. A falling resting heart rate is mostly useful as a sign: it tends to follow better fitness, better sleep and less alcohol, which are worth having on their own. The normal adult range is 60 to 100 bpm. If you are already in the 50s or 60s and feel well, there is no target you need to hit.

Which exercise lowers resting heart rate the most?

Endurance training and yoga are the two types of exercise that lowered resting heart rate in both men and women in a 2018 meta-analysis of 191 studies. Endurance training lowered it by about 2.7 to 5.8 bpm and yoga by about 5.2 to 5.5 bpm. Strength training also lowered it, but the effect was smaller and less consistent.

Type of training	Effect on resting heart rate	Notes
Endurance (running, cycling, swimming, brisk walking)	About 2.7 to 5.8 bpm lower	Significant in women and men
Yoga	About 5.2 to 5.5 bpm lower	Significant in women and men
Strength training	Smaller drop, not significant overall	Still useful for health; see guideline below
Combined endurance and strength	About 3.8 bpm lower in women	Fewer studies

Source: Reimers, Knapp and Reimers, J Clin Med 2018, meta-analysis of 191 studies with 215 samples of healthy adults.

The meta-analysis also found that the drop was larger in people who started with a higher resting heart rate, and in younger participants. If your resting heart rate is already low, expect less room to move.

How much to do: the US Physical Activity Guidelines recommend 150 to 300 minutes of moderate activity or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous activity a week, plus muscle strengthening on 2 days. Most of the endurance trials used regular aerobic sessions over weeks to months. Easy aerobic work counts. See zone 2 heart rate for how to set an easy training intensity.

Does sleep lower resting heart rate?

Sleep duration is associated with resting heart rate. In wearable data from 92,457 adults, the lowest resting heart rate was seen in people who slept an average of 7 to 7.5 hours a night, for both men and women. Adults need 7 or more hours of sleep per night, according to the AASM and Sleep Research Society consensus.

Sleep also sets the conditions for your morning number. If you want a lower morning resting heart rate, a regular bedtime and enough time in bed are the cheapest levers you have. The night pattern itself is explained in sleeping heart rate.

How much does alcohol raise resting heart rate?

Alcohol is associated with a higher heart rate during sleep in a dose-dependent way. In 4,098 Finnish adults measured with beat-to-beat recordings, sleeping heart rate in the first 3 hours was on average 1.4 bpm higher after low intake, 4.0 bpm after moderate intake and 8.7 bpm after high intake, compared with the same people's alcohol-free nights.

Alcohol intake (pure alcohol per kg body weight)	Rough example for a 70 kg adult	Change in sleeping heart rate
Low: up to 0.25 g/kg	Up to about 1 standard US drink	+1.4 bpm
Moderate: 0.25 to 0.75 g/kg	About 1 to 4 drinks	+4.0 bpm
High: above 0.75 g/kg	More than about 4 drinks	+8.7 bpm

Source: Pietilä et al., JMIR Mental Health 2018, 4,098 adults, within-person comparison. Drink examples are our arithmetic (70 kg times g/kg, divided by 14 g of alcohol per US standard drink, NIAAA), not from the study.

The study also found that being young or physically active did not protect against the effect. HRV-based recovery fell too, by 9.3, 24.0 and 39.2 percentage units across the three doses. For more on the HRV side, see alcohol and HRV.

What else can raise your resting heart rate?

Illness, short sleep, alcohol and some medicines can all raise resting heart rate. Before trying to lower your number, check whether one of these explains a recent rise. A temporary rise from a cold or a late night is not a fitness problem and goes away by itself.

Large personal differences are normal. In the 92,457-person wearable study, age, sex, BMI and sleep together explained no more than 10% of the difference in resting heart rate between people. Each person's normal value is fairly stable, but it can differ from another person's by nearly 70 bpm. That is why your own trend matters more than a comparison with a friend.

If your number has climbed and you are not sure why, the step-by-step check is in why is my resting heart rate going up.

How long does it take to lower resting heart rate?

Training changes resting heart rate over weeks to months, while sleep and alcohol change it overnight. In the exercise trials, the effects were measured after programs of several weeks or longer. Expect a slow drift of a few bpm, visible in a 7-day or 30-day average, not a sudden drop.

A practical timeline:

Change	When it can show	How big
Skip evening alcohol	Next night	Up to 8.7 bpm lower sleeping HR vs a heavy-drinking night
Sleep 7 or more hours, regular bedtime	Days	Varies by person
Recover from a cold or flu	As the illness clears	Back toward your baseline
Regular endurance training or yoga	Weeks to months	About 3 to 6 bpm

Sources: Pietilä et al. 2018; Reimers et al. 2018; Quer et al. 2020.

Is a low resting heart rate ever a problem?

A low resting heart rate is usually a sign of fitness, but not always. Well-trained athletes often sit at 40 to 60 bpm. A rate below 60 bpm in someone who is not a trained athlete, especially with dizziness, fainting, unusual tiredness or shortness of breath, can be a sign of a slow rhythm (bradycardia) and needs a doctor.

Also see a doctor if your resting heart rate stays above 100 bpm, if your pulse is irregular, or if a pounding pulse lasts more than a few minutes. Do not change a prescribed medicine to change your number without talking to your doctor.

How do you know if it is working?

Measure the same way at the same time and look at the average, not single days. A wearable that estimates resting heart rate overnight, or a morning reading before getting up, gives comparable numbers. Compare 7-day averages month over month, and log alcohol and sleep so you can see which nights moved the number.

• Same method: Watch, chest strap, phone camera or manual count. Do not switch in the middle of a trend.
• Same time: Right after waking, or the overnight value from a wearable.
• Enough data: Wait for at least 2 to 4 weeks of data before judging a training change.
• Log the confounders: Alcohol, late meals, illness and travel explain many bad mornings.

How Svanu shows what moves your resting heart rate

Svanu reads resting heart rate from Apple Health. If your watch does not write one, the app derives it from heart-rate samples as the lowest 30-minute average during your main sleep, and compares derived values only with derived values.

The correlations view runs 30-day Pearson correlations between your logs and your outcomes, and shows a result only with at least 14 paired days and p below 0.05. For alcohol, it compares days with 0, 1 to 2 and 3 or more drinks against next-morning outcomes over 90 days. Caffeine, nutrition and mindfulness logs are included too. These are associations in your own data, not proof of cause, but they show which habits line up with your better mornings. All scores are computed on your iPhone. See what is free and what is in Pro on the Svanu home page.