Your heart is on the left side of the sternum behind the ribs and touching your chest will not give you a pulse. Use your wrist by bending your hand inward--feel for a vein and using first two fingers (not thumb--has it s own pulse), press on vein until you feel a beat--count them for 15 sec. and then multiply by 4 = heart rate. Or get a blood pressure cuff, everyone should have one anyway. anything from 60-100 can be counted, if excited or stressed or after a lot of exercise, your heart rate goes up. When sleeping before a REM state (dream), rate usually slows down. You can t tell blood pressure by pulse, you need a cuff. Go to a pharmacist and ask for a good wrist blood pressure cuff or one for the arm. Look on line at WebMD to learn about heart rate, pulse and various things that can trigger high blood pressure which is the most common problem vs. low. Low blood pressure is usually when you are training for races or sports or even mountain climbing--and you would have to be in excellent physical condition to begin with--checked out medically. Plenty of books at the library on ways to keep your heart in good shape, like no caffaine, no smoking, no air pollution, no high stress job like air traffic controller or fireperson. Also eating low fat, low carb foods and eliminate animal fats like lard or charcoal grilled meats, hot dogs (processed foods), and eating more vegetables, salads, low mercury fish like sardines, adding omega 3 oils to diet, pom juice, blueberries, and more. You can also feel your pulse in your neck (just below the ears on either side) and below your ankle and on the left and right side of your groin. Just knowing your pulse doesn t really mean anything without knowing other things like pressure, kidney function, glucose levels (A1C) for diabetes, potassium levels, calcium, cholesterol, blood count, white count and more. Some people taking blood pressure medicines can take too much and will lower it too much and get dizzy when getting out of bed too quickly. If you haven t seen a doctor for a physical, at least go online to read about keeping your body healthy and know the various functions of your vital organs. Good luck.