The sinus node sends out an electrical signal at regular intervals which tells the heart to beat. This natural pacemaker is called the sinus node. Everybody has a natural pacemaker in their heart that tells the heart when to beat. The heart’s beating is controlled electrically. We can say that the average heart rate is 70 bpm, or that the average pulse rate is 70 bpm – it means the same thing because each single heart beat causes a single arterial pulsation Our natural pacemaker That is why the pulse rate is the same as the heart rate. Each time the heart beats, all the arteries in the body pulsate. The arterial pulsation keeps time exactly with the heart beat itself. When you feel your pulse, what you are feeling is the artery pulsating – expanding or stretching – a little bit with each heart beat, due to the blood which the heart squeezed into it during that heart beat. This brief stretching of the arteries is called an arterial pulsation. This squeeze causes the arteries to stretch out a little with each heart beat. Each time your heart beats, it squeezes a small amount of blood forward into your arteries. If you have a normal heart rhythm and you feel your own pulse, you will see that your pulse taps out a regular, predictable beat. Those 70 heart beats each minute are all evenly spaced out and they are predictable, like the drumbeat of a song. An average heart beats about 70 times per minute (beats per minute, or bpm), or a little more than once per second. AF is an abnormal heart rhythm sometimes referred as an irregular heart beat. What is AF? Why should I monitor for afib?ĪF stands for Atrial Fibrillation, or afib.
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