I was sitting and reading today when my watch suddenly vibrated with an alert: my sinus heart rate was too high. By the time it notified me, it was already at 110 beats per minute.
I checked what that might mean, and the general answer was that an occasional spike in sinus rhythm usually is not a big problem and is something to monitor rather than panic over.
Even so, I still felt uneasy, so I rechecked it with a blood pressure monitor. The device showed a pulse of 97 beats per minute, which was close enough to what the watch had detected. When the heart is functioning normally, pulse rate and heart rhythm should match, so this suggested the watch was not simply producing a random false reading.
That said, watch-based heart rate tracking is often not especially precise. In colder temperatures or when the wrist is sweaty, the readings can drift quite a bit. A difference of around 10 beats is not unusual.
What made this feel more noticeable to me is that my heart rate tends to run on the lower side. During ordinary daily activity, I am usually around 70 beats per minute, so 110 is clearly high for me. My resting heart rate recently has been staying around 55 to 56, which is why today’s alert made me nervous.
I even started digging around for my chest strap so I could double-check things with a more reliable reading. But it seems Huawei HarmonyOS 6 may no longer be compatible with my Polar heart rate strap. A device that had paired before was no longer showing up, and repeated attempts to pair it again all failed.
Today’s alert also made me think about a broader pattern. I have exercised much less this year, and my physical condition has obviously declined. I went for a run recently at roughly a 6'10" per kilometer pace, but my average heart rate had already climbed to 172.
Compared with previous years, I have spent much more time on the computer and much less time moving. I can feel that my overall health is not what it used to be. My memory also seems worse than last year, and when I read, my mind wanders easily. My attention breaks more often too.
You could interpret that as simple aging, as if I have reached the stage where decline starts becoming obvious. But it could just as well reflect a drop in health, and I am more inclined to believe that the reduction in exercise this year has a lot to do with it.
I really do need to get back to exercising more. A lot of things in life can be missing, but health cannot be one of them.