Did you know that in the UK, there is around twice as many people living with cardiovascular disease than with cancer and Alzheimer’s disease combined?1
Cardiovascular disease is one of the most prominent challenges of our time. Earlier this year (Jan 2025) British Heart Foundation created a fact sheet1 about this. Their fact sheet shows that in just one day:
- Over 7 million people live with heart or circulatory disease
- 270 people are admitted to a hospital due to a heart attack
- 480 people will die from heart or circulatory disease (130 of them will be younger than 75 years old)
These statistics tell me, that there might be a high chance that you are worried about your heart. Whether it’s a worry because you have experienced, or are experiencing, symptoms that can indicate something is not quite right with your heart; or perhaps it’s a worry due to a history of heart problems in your family.
These statistics also tell me that perhaps you want to know about at-home ways to check that your heart is beating okay.
You can, of course, go to your GP and ask for a referral for a series of tests and a consultation with a cardiologist, but I suspect you know that to be referred, there need to be more than just a worry. I think you would find it very hard to be referred just for a check-up, and you would most likely need to go privately.
That leaves you with two options:
- Keep your fingers crossed and hope that nothing is wrong
- Take matters into your own hands and test your heart at home
There are a couple of ways you can do the latter:
Check Your Pulse
One of the ways to check your heart at home is to follow a method described on the British Heart Foundation’s website2.
The check is simple and it is quick, but unfortunately, this technique only gives you a snapshot of your heart’s performance. It is only one minute…
All you have to do is check your pulse for 60 seconds. The number of beats you end up with will tell you if your heart beats too fast or too slow and whilst you’re checking your pulse you will know if your heart beats regularly. The Foundation suggests to do the test at the same time of day for a few days to see if the result is consistent. Nonetheless, you are only checking a small fraction of your heart’s performance.
There must be a better way to check that your heart can effectively handle the ins and outs of your day, right?
Fortunately, there is …
Wear a Heart Monitor
But not just any monitor. It needs to be one that can record every beat of your heart and collect enough data to effectively analyse the unique characteristics of your heart.
It needs to be a monitor that…
- is convenient for you to wear so you can go about your day and not worry about it.
- is able to take into account any exercise you do, how well you sleep and how much stress you are under.
- is safe. Ideally NHS approved.
- can give you detailed analysis of your heart’s performance.
- creates output that, if needs be, you can share with your doctor.
Luckily, there is a device that ticks all of these boxes. Our Holter device weighs only 17g and you can wear it all day (or a few days). It will continuously monitor your heart recording every beat, no matter what you do (yes, you can swim or shower with it too). To find out more about our Holter device, click here.
If you know someone who would find this article useful, please send it to them. It might just be that they are worried about their heart and would want to know how to check their heart at home.
References:
- British Heart Foundation – UK Statistics Fact Sheet
- British Heart Foundation – When should I worry about bradycardia – low heart rate? To read this article, click here.
