Heart Anxiety

[Frankie11]

Anyone so in tune with there hearts?

I keep having flutters, quick pains which is scaring me?

[mgw]

I have what I think are palpitations, feelings of sort of fluttery feeling that lasts a second or so. I also focus alot on my heart, when I focus more I feel pain. I think this is largely to do with my mind creating it. Palps and that feeling are complelety normal with anxiety x

[Frankie11]

Thanks hin awful aint it x

[mgw]

It is, one of the worst physical symptoms I think! Best thing is to remember that nothing bad will happen. I suffer badly from health anxiety and my counsellor has suggested some tips to help it, firstly recording myself when I have worries about symptoms, realising you worry all the time and nothing bad happens helps alot! Also to say in your head 'why the f***k would that happen' wierdly helps too! x

[saab]

I have pvcs, which cause palpitations, and in turn huge heart anxiety. In a bad spell I can have hundreds, sometimes thousands a day. Starting 9 years ago, I had panic attack, can't leave the house, lie awake at night scared to sleep in case I die in the night type anxiety. I mention this because despite all this I am still here. Doctors only regard pvcs, the most common cause of palpitations, as 'frequent' if you have over a thousand a day. They are present on up to 40% of people who are given ecgs.

I wasted several years waiting for a catastrophe that never came. Everything I have ever read about pvcs says that they are normal heart activity, very common, easy to identify on an ecg, and harmless in a structurally normal heart, ie. if you don't have advanced heart disease.

They can be caused by anxiety,excess caffeine, alcohol, heavy meals, gas/indigestion, and a host of other things. If you have them regularly, ask your gp for an ecg just to put your mind at rest, but they are nearly always benign.

If I have a bad spell I still have huge anxiety, but in 9 years nothing bad has ever happened. Plus, of course I am hugely tuned in to every little sensation in my heart or chest now, which doesn't help.

[Althea]

As saab's post suggests, it's not so much being "in tune with" your heart as it is being overfocused on it. Since what it's doing is normal, the challenge is to pay less attention to what it's doing rather than to try to change it.

People have reported good luck with exercise, yoga, meditation, watching comedies, etc., as ways to distract themselves from that kind of overfocus--have you tried any of those?