• Question: Is the heart beat frequency different at night?

    Asked by anon-189212 to Yousef, Rachel, Petrina, Michael, Jason, Emma on 7 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by anon-189300.
    • Photo: Mike Ambler

      Mike Ambler answered on 7 Nov 2018:

      Hi Nora,

      Good question! Yes when we are asleep our heart rate slows down. This is because a long nerve that travels from the brain to lots of different areas tells everything to slow down (it’s called the vagus nerve, which means ‘wandering’ in Latin). One of the places the vagus nerve sends a signal to is the heart, so the heart rate slows down when you are asleep.

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