We’ve long known that the heart is a powerful indicator of health. Your resting heart rate (RHR) — the number of beats per minute when you’re calm and at rest — reflects your body’s fitness and recovery. According to large-scale CDC research, the average adult’s resting heart rate is 71 and 74 bpm, for males and females, respectively. Lower rates are often linked to better fitness and cardiovascular health, while consistently high rates have been tied to premature mortality and increased risk of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, and other chronic diseases.
But there’s a new piece of the puzzle: your Workload Heart Rate (Workload HR).
Unlike RHR, which tells us how your body performs at baseline, Workload HR captures the mental strain you’re under — the “heartbeat of your brain.” It rises when you’re multitasking, problem-solving, stressed, or fatigued, much like your pulse rises during a workout.
Why Workload HR Matters
Research is increasingly clear: when your heart beats faster, whether from physical activity or psychological strain, it carries consequences for long-term health.
- Hypertension risk: Studies show that a higher resting heart rate is strongly associated with developing high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease over time. Even small increases in resting rate were linked with significantly higher risks (Palatini, 2021).
- Stress load: Chronic psychological stress activates similar physiological pathways as exercise, but without the health benefits. Prolonged elevations in Workload HR can mean your nervous system is “always on,” which contributes to fatigue, poor recovery, and long-term strain.
- Population data: Large CDC studies of resting heart rate distributions confirm how important baseline heart rate is to health. Workload HR adds a new dimension by showing how much additional load your brain is carrying throughout the day (Ostchega et al., 2011).
Put simply: just as you wouldn’t ignore a consistently elevated resting heart rate, you shouldn’t ignore elevated Workload HR. Your heart needs better rest for better health.
The CuesHub App
That’s where CuesHub comes in. With the CuesHub app, you can now monitor your Workload HR continuously and learn how much risk you may be carrying.
- Below 90 (“In the Clear”) – Your brain is steady, focused, and operating in a sustainable zone.
- 90–100 (“Stay Alert”) – Your mental load is climbing. This is the time to take a quick break, stretch, or breathe.
- 100+ (“Take Action”) – You’ve entered a zone of cognitive overload. Prolonged time here can reduce performance and may impact long-term health if ignored.
By pairing these insights with simple cues and reminders, CuesHub helps you act before frequent exhaustion results in irreversible damage to critical organs.
Without CuesHub, you would not find out your risk level until symptoms of a disease show up or anomalies are found in health screening. Sometimes, it may be too late if irreversible damage has occurred to a critical organ.
The dashboard provides a view of Santosh’s mental effort throughout the day, including total effort and an hour-by-hour breakdown.
From Numbers to Action
The magic of CuesHub isn’t just in tracking — it’s in what you do with the data.
- When your heart doesn’t get adequate rest, CuesHub nudges you to pause before fatigue sets in.
- Over time, you can see patterns: meetings that always involve high mental load, or recharges that give your heart the much-needed rest.
This helps you design healthier routines, improve focus, and protect both your mind and your body.
A comparison of Santosh’s mental effort for the day against his usual levels.
Why This Matters Now
We live in a time when the pressure of work, family, and society is constant, and most of us only notice it when it’s already overwhelming. By blending decades of heart rate research with new ways of measuring mental effort, Workload HR gives us an earlier warning signal.
CuesHub makes that signal actionable — turning invisible risk into a visible, trackable metric you can manage.
Because your mind has a heartbeat, too.
Start tracking your Workload HR with CuesHub and learn when to push, when to pause, and how to thrive.
Staying under 90 is ideal, while crossing 100 reflects excessive mental effort and cognitive strain.