Normal Heart Beat

 Heart Beat of Human

A stethoscope used to listen the heartbeat of a person

The pumping, of blood is the most vital function of the heart and this pumping action results into heart beat. The heart beats continuously through out life of an individual. The contraction of the heart is called "Systole" and relaxation is called "Diastole". The sequence of events which takes place during the completion of heart beat is called the cardiac cycle.

We know that heart contracts to pump the blood into our arteries and relaxes to fill the heart with the blood from pulmonary vein. This process of contraction and relaxation of heart again and again to pump the blood into the body continuously is called heart beat. Thus, we can define heart beat as.

"The process of rhythmic contraction and relaxation of heart that results in pumping of blood in our body."

Usually the heart beats about 70-72 times in a minute in the resting stage. The number of beats increases during excitement and physical exercises. A doctor can listen to our heart beats by using an apparatus called Stethoscope. The process of expansion is called diastole and the process of contraction is called systole. The number of beats increases during excitement and physical exercise. The low-pitched sound of longer duration is called 'lubb' and the high-pitched sound of shorter duration is called 'dubb'. The sound 'lubb' is produced when auriculo-ventricular valves i.e., bicuspid and tricuspid valves are closed and the sound 'dubb' is produced when semi-lunar valves i.e., aortic and pulmonary valves are closed.

With every heartbeat the blood forces itself into arteries and the arteries expand. The process of expansion of an artery each time when the blood is forced into it, is called pulse. The rate of pulse of a person is equal to the number of heartbeats per minute. Since, we know that the rate of heartbeat is 70-72 per minute, the pulse rate is also said to be 70-72 while resting. This may increase during excitation and physical exercises.

A doctor listens to the heartbeat of a patient using stethoscope

We can feel our heart beats

Can we feel the heart beat or pulse? Yes.

Let us see how?

We can feel the heart beat by keeping our hand on the chest just above the heart region. We can also feel it by using stethosope which magnifies the sound of heart beats for us to hear clearly.

We can feel our pulses in certain parts of our body such as wrist, neck by pressing the artery lightly with our finger tips.

We can feel the pulse in the wrist