Hyper aware of heartbeat

[THoltz]

Hello everyone,

Lately the past few days I have been strangely aware of my heartbeat. It's like I am becoming about my heartbeat and something not being not. I just checked my pulse sitting down with an app on my phone and it is 59 BPM.

I think my anxiety stems from the fact that my dad has an erratic heartbeat and just had to see the doctor about his. His got really high but they said he was low on potassium.

I run several times a week and try to maintain a healthy diet so I shouldnt haven anything to worry about but it is still lingers in my mind.

Does anyone have issues with this?

[LouiseAndy]

I can go between being aware of my heart rate being high or being low- it's difficult I know. I try to do something whenever I get those moments, like play a game of my phone or silly i know but singing along to a song x

[ankietyjoe]

There's no trick to this really, and a large percentage of people with anxiety/HA focus on this.

You are focusing on something that isn't of any concern, at all. Your Dad has a prescribed reason for it, and even without the low potassium an erratic heartbeat isn't always a serious issue.

The reality is you're in control of NOT focusing on it, and as Louise says you just need to distract yourself and get out of the habit of checking and monitoring.

[Careful1]

The more you focus on it, the more aware of it you will be become.

A heart rate of 59 bpm is awesome.

[BluesJC87]

Dont mean to scare you but low potassium can be dangerous and lead to cardiac arrest! A few years ago I was having random attacks especially at night when where my heart would randomly go over 180bpm in a matter of seconds and would abruptly stop I had a blood test which showed my potassium was low, so after doing a bit of research into this i learned it can be very dangerous but anywayI started eating a lot more potassium rich foods and i don’t have them anymore!

[Careful1]

Dont mean to scare you but low potassium can be dangerous and lead to cardiac arrest! A few years ago I was having random attacks especially at night when where my heart would randomly go over 180bpm in a matter of seconds and would abruptly stop I had a blood test which showed my potassium was low, so after doing a bit of research into this i learned it can be very dangerous but anywayI started eating a lot more potassium rich foods and i don’t have them anymore!

I know you mean well but yea this is deff not the place for a post like this. OP does not say they have low potassium but that their father had an erratic heart beat and it was found that his potassium was low.
Yes low potassium can cause dangerous arrhythmia’s but potassium that is too high is also dangerous. One should not increase potassium intake unless they have been told they have low potassium or potassium on the lower end as it’s not hard to over do it. I have heart arrhythmia’s and am also prone to low potassium levels. My dr advised me to eat a banana a day which I did but I also love orange juice which is also high in potassium. When my levels were checked a week later my potassium was to high and that was just from one banana and one glass of orange juice a day.

[MagicalSprite]

I get this a lot. Sometimes when stressed / anxious, sometimes hours after stressing and sometimes with caffeine. Palpations, pounding, fluttering and hyper awareness of beats. I mostly ignore it now. I did have it checked out and they couldn’t find a thing wrong. It’s been more frequentl lately also. Occasionally I’ll check my heart rate when it happens. If it’s in normal range I tell myself not to worry. Normal range is also an average I think, so close to normal range seems fine too. Also if you’re sitting down not doing much you’ll notice it more. X