Factors Affecting Human Pulse Rate

Our heart is a muscle. It's located a little to the left of the middle of our chest, and it's about the size of our fist. There are lots of muscles all over our body — in our arms, in our legs, in our back etc. But the heart muscle is special because of what it does. The heart sends blood around our body. The blood provides our body with the oxygen and nutrients it needs. It also carries away waste. Our heart is sort of like a pump or two pumps in one.

The right side of our heart receives blood from the body and pumps it to the lungs. The left side of the heart does the exact opposite: It receives blood from the lungs and pumps it out to the body. Every time when blood travels through heart it produces a sound called lub-dub. Lub happens when the upper chambers of the heart contract to squeeze the blood downward into the ventricles.

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A dub happens when the lower chambers contract. Every time the lower chambers of the heart contract, the blood in the left ventricle rushes upward into the aorta. It quickly speeds away from the heart causing the aorta to expand as it passes. As the blood races along, some of it pushes into the first artery that branches off from the aorta. Some of the blood enters the next artery. The blood from each contraction of the heart produces a bulge in the artery.

This bulge of the arteries is called a pulse.

One pulse is equal to one Heartbeat. The rate at which heart beats is called pulse rate. It can be varied by various factors such as:

- Body Build and Size. A short, fat person may have a higher rate than a tall, slender person. The larger the size, the slower the rate. For example, a grizzly bear has a heart rate of about 30 beats a minute while a hummingbird’s is about 200 beats per minute.

• Gender: a woman's heart rate is generally faster than a man's.
• Age: generally the younger a person is, the faster the heart rate. An infant's heart rate is about 120 beats per minute; a child's is around 100; an adult's is between 70 and 80; an elderly person generally hovers in the 60s.
• Exercise and Muscular Activity. An increase in pulse rate will occur with increased activity to meet increased oxygen and nutrient demands. A regular aerobic exercise program can lower the resting pulse. A person, who exercises a great deal, such as an athlete, will develop bradycardia that is a normal, health condition. The body slows the heartbeat to compensate for the greater volume of blood pumped with each beat.
• Emotional Status. Fear, anger, and anxiety will all increase the pulse rate.
• Hormones: influence heart rate, especially epinephrine, norepinephrine, and thyroid hormones, all of which can increase the rate.
• Pathology: certain diseases affect heart rate, causing it either to slow or to race. Medications and drugs: Stimulants will increase the pulse rate; depressants will decrease the pulse rate. For example, Digitalis slows the rate, while epinephrine (Adrenalin) increases it. Caffeine can also cause palpitations or extra beats.
• Blood Pressure. As the blood pressure decreases, the pulse will frequently increase.
• Elevated Body Temperature. The pulse increases approximately 10 beats per minute for every 1 F (0.56º C) increase in body temperature. These conditions cause a temporary increase in the heartbeat and pulse.
• Pain. When the patient is in pain, the pulse rate will increase.

Hypothesis

I think that exercise will vary the pulse rate because when we are working out or exercising, oxygen is released from our body more rapidly as the cells metabolize and use up the oxygen quicker, and so our body requires a greater amount of oxygen. Due to which our heart rate increases to carry oxygenated blood to our muscles and organs. Hence, increasing our pulse rate.

Variables

1. Independent Variable: In this the independent variable is exercise because the pulse rate is varied by the exercise we do.
2. Dependent Variable: In this the dependant variable is the pulse rate because it is dependent on exercise and many other factors that are kept constant.
3. Constant Variable: In this all other factors excluding exercise are kept constant. This allows us to measure the effect of exercise on pulse rate and minimize confounding effects due to any other factors that may influence heart rate.

Apparatus and Procedure

Stop watch

1. Sit down comfortably on a chair, locate the pulse and calculate the number of pulse per minute.
2. Walk gently measuring different feet and calculate the pulse rate after each distance.
3. Repeat these steps twice and calculate the average number of pulses per minute and record.

Person-1

Pulse rate after walking
1
2
3
Average pulse rate
At rest
74
72
77
74
100 feet
74
77
78
76
200 feet
77
79
76
77
300 feet
81
85
82
82
400 feet
87
84
89
86
500 feet
93
91
96
93

Person-2

Pulse rate after walking
1
2
3
Average pulse rate
Pulse rate at rest
70
75
73
72
100 feet
73
72
77
74
200 feet
78
74
80
77
300 feet
79
81
83
81
400 feet
85
82
88
85
500 feet
91
94
98
94

Person-3

Pulse rate at rest
1
2
3
Average pulse rate
Pulse rate at rest
73
72
75
73
100 feet
77
84
87
82
200 feet
94
96
93
94
300 feet
104
106
107
105
400 feet
104
110
108
107
500 feet
106
109
104
106

Conclusion

BY observing my graphs I came to the conclusion that exercise raises the pulse rate because When the body is exercising the muscles respire to produce energy, so the muscles can contract. Oxygen is needed, the oxygen is carried in the haemoglobin of the red blood cell. The heart and lungs need to work harder in order to get a greater amount of oxygen to the muscles for respiration. In muscle cells digested food substances are oxidised to release energy. The heart rate rises because during exercise, respiration in the muscles increases, so the level of carbon dioxide in the blood rises.

Carbon dioxide is slightly acid; the brain detects the rising acidity in the blood, the brain then sends a signal through the nervous system to the lungs to breathe faster and deeper. Gaseous exchange in the lungs increases allowing more oxygen into the circulatory system and removing more carbon dioxide. The brain then sends a signal to make the heart beat faster.

As a result this, heart rate would rise. My graph confirms my hypothesis in that as the length of exercise is increased, the number of beats per minute rises. Hence the result shown by our experiment seems to be correct. Therefore I think that the procedure we used was reliable. Although there are some sources of error but these do not makes much difference and can be ignored.

Sources of error

As experiment is fully performed by humans so there are some human errors involved in the experiment. Firstly, we didn’t use pulse rate meter so there may be some errors in counting the pulse rate making some changes to our result. Secondly, the person might not have properly relaxed so; factors like stress, excitement can affect the pulse rate making changes to our result. Thirdly, it took time to count the pulse rate after exercise, because of which the increased pulse rate might have come to normal in this meantime.

Improvements

By making some improvements in our experiment we could get more better and exact result. For example Instead of counting the pulse we could have used pulse rate meter to calculate pulse rate. Secondly, we could have taken pulse rate of more persons for better and accurate result.