Did you know that....A normal resting heart rate for adults ranges from 60 to 100 beats per minute? Generally, a lower heart rate at rest implies more efficient heart function and better cardiovascular fitness. For example, a well-trained athlete might have a normal resting heart rate closer to 40 beats per minute.

Conventional wisdom suggests that if you want something to last longer, you should go easy on it. And most of the time, that’s sage advice. But not when it comes to your body’s hardest-working organ: your heart.

Each day, your heart beats, on average, 100,000 times, pumping your blood through a vast system of blood vessels that’s more than 60,000 miles long.

But making your heart work even harder — through moderate- to high-intensity physical activity on a consistent basis — can help lower your blood pressure and make your heart stronger, says cardiologist Leslie Cho, MD.

According to John Hopkin's Medicine, Exercise that revs up your heart rate isn’t the only kind of physical activity that can help prevent or manage heart disease. The calming exercise of yoga is good for the heart, too.

“A large number of studies show that yoga benefits many aspects of cardiovascular health,” says Hugh Calkins, M.D., director of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Service at Johns Hopkins. “There’s been a major shift in the last five years or so in the number of cardiologists and other professionals recognizing that these benefits are real.”

The practice of yoga, has been the focus of a number of clinical studies, and evidence shows that all those Sun Salutations and Downward Dogs may contribute to a healthier heart. For example, people with atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart rhythm, had significantly lower blood pressure and heart rates after they practiced 30 minutes of light yoga weekly for 12 weeks, according to a study published in March 2016 in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing. Yoga also significantly improved their mental health and quality of life, the researchers reported.

~Everyday health.com