Health: Resting Heart Rate (RHR)

The heart at Rest.

My resting heart rate this morning was measured at 39 bpm. This is maintained without any endurance or prolonged stressful activities too.  You don't have to do endless steady-starte cardio workouts to improve cardiovascular health.

Why is this relevant? Well your resting heart rate is one indication of aerobic fitness. Exercise makes your heart stronger and more efficient, each contraction pumps relatively more blood and needs fewer beats per minute to do its work.

Consider perhaps the most important muscle in the body, not just the muscles you can see in the mirror.

Read more about heart health:

Heart Rate monitor for your smart phone:

Review: Instant Heart Rate App (iPhone)

 My resting heart rate during testing

There are a few apps for the iPhone that promise to read and display your heart rate.  None of these seem to work very well - if at all.  However I have found a gem of an app that actually works and is very accurate.

What is more phenomenal is how it does this.  It uses the camera flash on the iPhone 4 to measure the change in colour as blood flow increases and decreases with your pulse, taking around 30 seconds to read.  This is a functional as well as a very impressive app, and the cheapest heart rate monitor I have come across.  

It's free (with ads and limited functionality) - or 0.59p (UK) for a fully featured version.

Note: Resting heart rate (RHR) - is the number of heart beats per minute when we are at rest; the average is usually between 60 and 80/min.  The resting heart rate can be one indication of your basic fitness level, in most cases the lower the better.   The better trained your body, the less effort and fewer beats per minute it takes your heart to pump blood to your body whilst at rest.

Update on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 7:48 by Darryl Edwards

This is also available for Android devices at the Android Marketplace

Quick Review: Seasons App (iPhone)

This app is useful for anyone concerned with sourcing local and seasonal foods.  It lists fruits and vegetables that are local and in season.  You can also search by day, month or by food (including herbs, mushrooms and nuts).  

Particularly useful is the option to categorise foods that are imported or regional, and to see when foods are coming into and out of season so you can maximise the best time to buy when the food is freshest.

The application has information on local farmer's markets with times and other pertinent details.

The app is supported in the UK, US, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Western and Central Europe - and uses GPS to pull in relevant information.

This app is useful for those wishing to get local access to a wide variety of foods, when in season thus maximising nutritional quality and reducing food miles when obtaining fruits and vegetables.  

With over 240 products there are bound to be items you have not come across before so it will also broaden your culinary options.

This is educational as well as a handy reference.  Highly recommended.

Seasons - available on the App Store

Review: Take the Stress out of Tipping (iPhone)

Take the stress out of tipping

Tipping Tips - iPhone

This may seem like an unusual application to review on this site.   But as a big gadget and technology fan I am keen to share useful applications that will save you time and hassle.  

I am constantly looking at ways to reduce stress using my iPhone and some smart-phone apps can directly or indirectly assist with this goal. 

Tipping Tips is an iPhone app that provides tipping advice.  There are many apps out there that will calculate tips for meals out, or split the bill between several people, but this does far more.

For anyone who travels to another country you will have encountered the struggle with how much to tip and when, for example a taxi from the airport, porter or other services.  Do I pay the exact fare, round up or pay a fixed percentage?  What works in one country doesn't apply everywhere so the answer isn't always straightforward.  For example did you know it's insulting to tip in Japan (bar a few minor exceptions)?

Pricing: UK - 0.59p, US - $0.99

Tipping Tips - iTunes App Store