pulse

Your pulse is the rhythmic beat you can feel in your arteries. It is caused by the heart beating and pumping blood through your body.

Here is how your pulse works:

• Your heart beats, which pumps blood into your arteries.
• The blood flowing through your arteries pushes against the walls of the arteries.
• This causes the arteries to expand and contract.
• You can feel the expansion and contraction of the arteries as your pulse.
• Your pulse rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute. A normal pulse rate for a child is between 80 and 120 beats per minute. A normal pulse rate for an adult is between 60 and 100 beats per minute.

Your pulse can be affected by a number of things, including:

• Exercise: Your pulse rate will increase when you exercise.
• Stress: Your pulse rate will increase when you are stressed.
• Illness: Your pulse rate may be faster or slower than normal if you are ill.

The doctor took my pulse to check my heart rate.