Heartbeat and coffee

Being conscious of the stress on heartbeat during exercises, I constantly monitor my heartbeat. It become so habitual that even on normal days, I tends to measure it by doing the Chinese SinSeh style of measuring pulse by checking the pulse on my wrist for ten seconds then multiply by 6.

Through this constant measurements, I come to realize the effects of caffeine on the heartbeat. My usual resting heartbeat is 60 bpm. After a continuous consumption of one cup of coffee a day for a year, my resting heartbeat has increased to 75 bpm. that is a hefty jump of 25%.

Assuming I rested a whole day. The number of heartbeat at 60 bpm is 86400 beats. At 75 bpm, the number of heartbeat is 108000. The difference is 21600. Now one of my regular exercise heartbeat is 152 bpm average for 2hrs 22min. That is 21584 beats. Look how close it is to the 21600 extra beat by consuming coffee? It looks like the caffeine makes my heart do exercise for 2 hours plus EACH day.

There is a hypothesis going on about the limited number of heartbeats every living creature has (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbeat_hypothesis). Increasing my heartbeat by 25% means my life will be shortened by 25%. That is something to chew on.

It took almost one week after the coffee cold turkey treatment that my heartbeat goes back to 60 bpm. That is really a long term effect of caffeine on me.

I will still drink coffee but at a very reduced rate of  maybe a cup or two a week. Perhaps my life span will be lengthened.