Pulse rate constantly fluctuating, resting around 100-125bpm

[MrLurcher]

Just because it didn't...is all.

During my biggest bout of stress I was in A&E overnight on three separate occasions with a heart rate stuck at around 120bpm. No medical reason, just shrugs and 'just stress' comments from the Doctors.

You can's isolate one stressful situation from another, and checking your pulse all the time is a compounding stress too. You're telling your CNS that something is wrong.

Anxiety is more 'big picture'. It's not really a series of stimulus and response situations. Long term stress messes with your hormone responses, especially adrenaline. If adrenaline is present, your heart will beat faster. That's just a basic truth. Deal with the big picture stress and especially the way you respond to stress and it'll improve over time.

The fast heart rate that you experience with anxiety is completely harmless, so the first thing to do is absolutely not start looking up terms like afib/tachycardia and arrhythmia. Again, you're mentally telling yourself something dangerous is happening. The same thing goes with checking your pulse (something I did fanatically for a prolonged period of time). It serves absolutely no purpose other than to trigger another adrenaline spike .

Thanks for the reply and information, it's helping me create a better picture of what anxiety can do to your heart. Looking back, I've had episodes of mildly racing heart and palpitations for years, so maybe because I'm going through heart worries, it's making them worse.

I read an interesting article about whether anxiety creates the heart rate or heart rate creates anxiety. The night before felt like the latter a bit, even though I was getting worked up about money before the spike.

It's hard at the moment to accept anxiety or if the years and years of on and off heart symptoms mean a serious underlying cause.

[pulisa]

You've had so many perceived serious underlying causes for symptoms over the past few months/weeks, Mr Lurcher.

The symptoms are real but they are not pathological and you will only be able to manage your HA if you accept that anxiety can create perceived havoc in your body.