What Cape Town’s Adventures Do for Your Heart Rate
We’re not about to provide you with a lesson in the basic physiology of human beings. Nonetheless, we’d strongly recommend that you undertake a few adventures to take your heart rate up a few notches when in Cape Town, also referred to as the fairest Cape, which it certainly is.
Your ticker is a vital organ, located just to the left of the centre of your chest, protected by the rib cage. Without a heartbeat, your body simply won’t function, because your heart’s purpose is that of a pump, circulating blood, oxygen, and nutrients throughout your body, while enabling other organs to purify blood and eliminate waste products.
The average healthy resting heart rate for an adult is between 60 and 100 beats per minute, unless you’re particularly fit, in which case it’s likely to be lower, at 40 odd beats per minute. If your resting heart rate is too slow, the condition is known as bradycardia, too fast and it’s called tachycardia. Arrhythmia describes an irregular heart rate. Medical conditions aside, there are other, pleasurable causes for an unusual heart rate.
When Upping a Few Notches is Great
Anything that’s adventurous, enjoyable, exciting, unusual, unexpected, challenging, or eagerly anticipated is guaranteed to up your heart rate by a few notches. It’s not just good for you; it’s great!
Nevertheless, the list of adventures on offer here in the Cape and surrounding areas is long and diverse, with something for all preferences, heart rates, and desired levels of adventure – from extreme to leisurely. These include:
- Diving with sharks.
- Snorkelling in the company of seals.
- Climbing Table Mountain or abseiling down; taking the cable car if you’re less adventurous or terrified of heights.
- Canoeing, kayaking (with or without penguins), or sailing.
- Surfing or kite surfing.
- Go karting.
- Horse riding on the beach.
- Renting a bike and cycling around to see the sights (where the terrain is relatively flat, if you like to keep your heart rate on a more even keel or mountain biking to kick the heart rate up by several notches).
- Sandboarding down some of Cape Town’s tall sand dunes.
Sometimes Cape Town Itself is Enough
The list goes on. It must also be said that simply visiting a place that’s as special as is Cape Town is enough to increase the heart rates of those who dearly love this city. At the end of a day’s adventure, settle your heart rate by a notch with a glass of the Cape’s finest – wine.
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