Is it normal to feel your heart beating?

Heart rate is a term used to describe the frequency of the cardiac cycle. It is considered one of the four vital signs. Usually it is calculated as the number of contractions (heart beats) of the heart in one minute and expressed as "beats per minute" (bpm). See "Heart" for information on embryofetal heart rates. The heart beats up to 120 times per minute in childhood. When resting, the adult human heart beats at about 70 bpm (males) and 75 bpm (females), but this rate varies among people. However, the reference range is normally between 60 bpm (if less termed bradycardia) and 100 bpm (if greater, termed tachycardia). Resting heart rates can be significantly lower in athletes. The infant/neonatal rate of heartbeat is around 130-150 bpm, the toddler's about 100–130 bpm, the older child's about 90–110 bpm, and the adolescent's about 80–100 bpm.

The pulse is the most straightforward way of measuring the heart rate, but it can be deceptive when some heart beats do not have much cardiac output. In these cases (as happens in some arrhythmias), the heart rate may be considerably higher than the pulse rate.

Auscultation is also a method of heart rate measurement.

Hypervigilance is an enhanced state of sensory sensitivity accompanied by an exaggerated intensity of behaviors whose purpose is to detect threats. For example, a driver who has previously been involved in a car accident may devote so much attention to road conditions and other cars on the road, that they do not hear an accompanying passenger while driving. Hypervigilance is a state of anxiety that often leads quickly to exhaustion.

Simply put, hypervigilance is a way to describe a person in a state of fight-or-flight.

It is a symptom of a number of stress-related disorders. See for example :

* Post-traumatic stress disorder,
* Combat stress reaction,
* Urban survival syndrome,
* Mean World Syndrome

It is manifested in victims of domestic violence and stalking. It is also seen as an aspect of the psychological condition of codependence, and as needing treatment in victims of torture.

It's a psychological thing. If you THINK hard enough about your heart you will begin to feel it's beat.
I just tried an experiment and thought about my heartbeat in my head. Sure enough after 10 seconds I could feel each heartbeat in my cranium.

It's akin to tinnitus. Ask anyone to listen hard for it and lo and behold almost everyone will start to hear some ear noises.

Technically, the term is "hypervigilance."

Long story short... I have mild pectus excavatum (do a google image search if you don't know what it is). Mine however, is nothing like in the pictures, all of the pictures show "severe" cases of it. Because of this, I'm quite paranoid of heart compression. So every now and then I find myself heavily breathing to get my heart rate up, and then place my fingertips on my bare chest just to feel where the beats subside.

Essentially I breath heavily with my fingers in the center of my chest, right where my minor indentation is. Then I move my fingers to the left, like 1/8 of an inch at a time, and see where I can start to feel the beating. I guess this makes me feel better, knowing that my heart isn't beating hard against the minor indentation I have.

I guess in reality I have nothing to worry about, especially since I've been working out lately. Evidently working out can often improve the appearance of mild pectus excavatum, which makes me feel good.

So yeah. I guess I started this thread initially to simply ask if it's normal to feel your heart beating, but turned it into a P.E. talk. But anyway, is it normal to feel your heart beat when your hand is on your chest? Another thing, I was running myself pretty hard on an 18 mile bike ride the other day. At one point I put my hand on my chest and it felt like my heart sure was movin a mile a minute. I assume this is normal too, to feel it beat like that? Even towards the center and in areas of my stomach it seems like I could feel the beat, somehow, haha.