Causes shown below are commonly associated with a high resting heart rate. Work with your doctor or another health care professional to get an accurate diagnosis.
- Physical Inactivity. The fitter you are the slower your pulse will be. Inactive people have higher resting heart rates than active people [36, 37].
- Stress. When your stress response is activated, it increases your heartbeat. This is true for both short-term and long-term stress [38, 39]. In an observational study of 634 people, people with higher stress levels and low socioeconomic status had higher resting heart rates [40].
- Anxiety. People with anxiety and panic attacks have increased heart rates [41, 42].
- Smoking. Smokers’ hearts beat faster than non-smokers’. The more a person smokes, the higher their resting heart rates [43, 44].
- Obesity. Overweight and obese people have higher resting heart rates than people with healthy weights [45, 46].
- Sleep deprivation [47]
- Fever [48, 49]
- Hyperthyroidism. Patients with overactive thyroids (hyperthyroidism) have higher resting heart rates than healthy people [50, 10].
- Heart Disease. Elevated heart rate can be due to the damage caused to the heart muscle by heart disease [51, 52, 53, 54].
- Anemia. People with anemia often have faster pulse [55, 56].
- High or low blood pressure. If you have either high or low blood pressure, you may have an elevated heart rate [57, 58].
- Severe bleeding. Blood loss increases one’s pulse [58].
- Too much alcohol [59, 60]
- Caffeine [61, 62]
- Recreational drugs. Drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines, and cannabis can increase your heart rate [63, 64, 65, 66, 67].
- Pharmaceuticals. Several drugs can increase your heart rate, including [68, 69]:
- Antiarrhythmic drugs
- Vasodilators
- Psychotropics
- Antimalarials
- Antibiotics
- serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors
- Electrolyte imbalances. Electrolytes need to be in balance in order for the heart to be able to function properly. Imbalances such as low potassium or low magnesium can increase a person’s pulse [70, 71, 72,73].