Try interval training, add fish oil to diet and get a good night’s sleep
Italian researchers found that having a resting heart rate above 70 beats per minute (bpm) increases your risk of dying of heart disease by at least 78 percent. Follow the tips below to help drop your bpm and improve your odds.Attack your cardio
Run hard, don't just jog. "Exercise increases your heart's efficiency, reducing the number of heartbeats you need to achieve bloodflow," says Dr. John Elefteriades, the chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Yale University. Interval training can increase your heart's stroke volume (the amount of blood it pumps with each heartbeat) by about 10 percent, but slower, sustained running has no effect on it, according to an American College of Sports Medicine study. Try a four-minute run at 90 percent of your maximum heart rate, and then jog for three minutes at 70 percent. Repeat the interval three times. Do this routine three times a week, as the study participants did. Keep track with a Suunto t3c Heart Rate Monitor. ($170, suuntowatches.com)
Trade massages with her
Regular massages may soothe a rapid heartbeat. Relaxation techniques reduce your body's production of adrenaline, norepinephrine, and epinephrine, stress hormones that rev up your heart in the face of danger, says Atman P. Shah, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine at UCLA. A 2007 British study found that people who received an hour of reflexology treatment (a type of foot or hand massage) had rates that averaged almost 8 bpm lower than when they went without.
