@NerdyKeith
Regularity of a heart beat denotes rhythm, whereas rate denotes the speed at which the heart beats per minute.
@zenvelo
Yep. Athletes. What’s normal for an athlete is not normal for the average person. If everyone ran five miles a day, we would have to adjust what we define as normal. And this is a good point. It;s done quite often. In the two years since I’ve left medicine, many normal ranges have been changed. That is why in order to keep our licenses, we must take a minimum 24 credit hours of study per year. And if you are wise, you’ll take a lot more.
It’s also a lesson to people who are phobic about the word “normal.” The word is meant only to be a point of reference, not as a badge of first class world citizenship. Like many words due to abuse over time, the meaning of the word to many has been perverted to approximate “one of us” and abnormal to mean “one of them”. That is foolish and rather than cast out a perfectly useful word, it is better to use it properly and reclaim it and not surrender to stupidity. That is why I appear to be beating this to death. This is a pet peeve of mine. This is a very old hippie argument. It had more to do with our distrust of authority and anti-establishment-ism during the war than it did with logic. We often threw the baby out with the bathwater in our zeal for change.
We may have our comonalities, but like our heartrates, ultimately what is normal for me is not normal for you due to our different life experiences and situations. And it is challenging at times for us to understand that but incumbent upon us to do so.
rant rant rant… sorry. I should go to bed now.