The heart pumps blood into our arteries by contracting. When the heart contracts, it becomes smaller in size and pushes the blood into main artery with a great force. Then the heart relaxes (comes back to its original size) and gets filled up with blood from pulmonary vein.
In this way, the heart keeps on contracting and relaxing again and again to pump blood into the body continuously. One complete contraction and relaxation of the heart is called a heart beat. The heart usually beats about 70 to 72 times in a minute when we are resting. This means that the heart pumps out blood to the arteries about 70 to 72 times per minute.
We can feel our heart beats if we place our hand on the chest just above the heart region. A doctor listens to our heart beats by using an apparatus called stethoscope. The stethoscope magnifies the sound of heart beats so that the doctor can hear the heart beats clearly.
Though the average number of heart beats of a person at rest is about 70 to 72 per minute but the number of heart beats increases too much after a physical exercise or when a person is excited. For example, if we count our heart beats after running for a while, we will find it to be more than 100 per minute.
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The heart beats faster during and after an exercise because the body needs more energy under these conditions. The faster beating of heart pumps blood more rapidly to the body organs which supplies more oxygen to the body cells for rapid respiration to produce more energy. The heart beats can be counted easily by counting the pulse.
Pulse:
Every time the heart beats, blood is forced into arteries. This blood makes the arteries expand a little. The expansion of an artery each time the blood is forced into it is called pulse. Each heartbeat generates one pulse in the arteries, so the pulse rate of a person is equal to the number of heartbeats per minute. Since the heart beats about 70 to 72 times per minute, therefore, the pulse rate of an adult person while resting is 70 to 72 per minute. Thus, the pulse rate is the same as the heart rate. Just like heartbeats, the pulse rate of a person is higher after a physical exercise or when a person is excited.
Most of our arteries lie deep inside our body and hence cannot be used to feel the pulse. But at some places in our body like the wrist, temple and neck, the arteries are close to the surface of skin and pass over bones. So, we can feel the pulse at wrist, temple and neck by pressing the artery lightly with our finger tips. The pulse is traditionally taken above the wrist. We can feel our own pulse and find the pulse rate as follows:
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The pulse can be felt with fingers placed gently on arteries at the wrist. We place the first two fingers (index finger and middle finger) of our right hand on the inner side of our left wrist and press it gently. We will feel some waves touching our fingers. These waves are the pulse. We can count the number of such waves (or thumping) in one minute by using a watch. This will give us the pulse rate (per minute).
We usually see the doctor taking the pulse rate of a patient by keeping his fingers on the wrist of the patient and at the same time looking into his watch. Doctors can tell by counting the pulse rate and listening to heartbeats whether a person is well or not. This is because the pulse rate and heartbeats change according to the condition of our heart.