Jarred awake with irregular / super fast heartrate

Hi Friends ~
I am wondering if anyone else Routinely experiences a rapid irregular heart rate jarring them awake? It happens to me every few months and it's terrifying. Sometimes it develops into afib with a ventricular response of 170-180 bpm.
Thank you in advance for sharing. It's how we learn best!

Yes that has happened to me. Nearly always after alcohol but a few times not. So I don't drink anymore. But so far I have flutter they say. I try and stop it with the maneuvers they teach you. Good luck

ajr, get tested for sleep apnea, that can cause the fast heartbeat you describe. When the body experiences the air shortage from not breathing, the heart speeds up in an effort to distribute the little oxygen it has to work with, In a person susceptible to afib, that will usually flip right into afib.Sometimes if you get the apnea treated it kills the afib too. Good luck with it.

PeggyM

Waking up in the early morning hours with a startled or jarred response and with a fast heart rate is very often caused by a cascade of hormonal changes highlighted by temporary nocturnal hypoglycemia that can result from too low cortisol function at that very time of night when our normal and variable cortisol levels are at there lowest nadir.

Cortisol is one of our most essential hormones, in fact, it is the only hormone that you can't live without for more than 24 to 48 hours or you are almost certainly dead in the absence of any cortisol production when under stress. Cortisol often gets a totally unfair bad name since a malfunctioning adrenal glands which produce cortisol and a host of other adrenal hormones, may often manifest as too much cortisol production either when a condition such as Cushing syndrome developed most often from an adrenal tumor, or from gradual adrenal compromise as so often occurs under unrelenting and poorly compensated for stressors of all kinds from the stress of normal metabolic function, to the major stress of an unexpected death in the family or any number of traumatic life events that befall most of all of us at one point or another.

It is often the case during many years of gradual decline in adrenal function in which the body is outputting copious amounts of cortisol, but at the wrong time of day in the early morning hours from midnight to 3am, for example, when normally a healthy cortisol production will start to rise from its night time low point to its peak around 8am in people sleeping a normal night time cycle.

From this 8am peak there is a gradual decline in the cortisol production curve throughout the day from this normal peak production to past 11pm by which time it is very low and then slowly bottoms out in the 2 to 3 pm range, typically, and then starts to rise again gradually around 4am in a normal circadian rhythm until it hits its peak again at 8am and starts the whole gradual slide down again over the next 15 hours or so.

Now when the adrenal glands are dysfunctional to a fair degree it is not unusual when at 2 to 3am as the body is trying to produce just enough additional cortisol during our lowest night time levels of this key metabolic energy and stress buster hormone, in order to keep our blood pressure and blood sugar levels high enough during sleep for proper metabolic function. Yet, when the adrenals simply can no longer produce the building blocks for enough cortisol at this lowest point typically in time of our daily production when it is most needed, we are then prone to falling rapidly into a generally temporary hypoglycemic state during deep sleep or rem-sleep.

When such too low cortisol levels and production coincides with our minimum 24 hour circadian nadir of cortisol, and then a hypoglycemia crash begins during sleep and the flagging adrenal glands that are unable to marshal enough cortisol to reverse this nocturnal blood sugar dive, it forces our adrenals to then urgently try to produced their fall back stress hormone as a temporary and not nearly as effective replacement for the missing cortisol in order to generate some boost in BP and glucose level as well via spurts of Adrenaline ... a strongly AFIB triggering adrenal hormone when we get a big enough dose.

When cortisol is too low and our adrenals are forced to rely on this fall back Adrenaline to help boost blood sugar and BP ... when its main job is as an intermittent 'fight or flight' hormone to get us to suddenly jump away from a speeding bus, or to jump and run like a bat out of hell suddenly when a tiger springs out of the jungle in our prior paleo era as a species.

Adrenaline is not as ideal of a steady-state anti-stress hormone as is cortisol. When too much adrenaline is released in large spurts, especially in the wee hours of the night when we should be sound asleep, you can easily see why you might suddenly jump awake with a startle with your heart racing as well.

Also when cortisol is so low that adrenaline is our main active fall-back adrenal hormone, it will also cause a simultaneous too rapid conversion of the normally non-active storage thyroid hormone called T4 into spikes of very bio-active T3 which, like with adrenaline, can be highly arrhythmo-genic as well! So, combined spurts of adrenaline with spikes of too high a dose of T3 during early morning hours and its a prescription for bolting upright out of sleep often sweating and with heavy palpitations and often night terror dreams as well!

Another related factor can be excess levels of the key hormone melatonin, often from taking supplemental melatonin in the 1 to 5 mg range before bed every night over a long time and taken sublingually which increase cellular levels of melatonin from 5 to 10 times when taken at night just before bed ... and particularly by those who are generally cortisol deficient already during the night.

Melatonin and Human Growth hormone (HGH) are both wonderful anabolic (tissue building/repair) hormones, but they both are designed to be at their peak blood and intracellular levels exactly at the same time as Cortisol and adrenaline are meant to be at their lowest nadir, from midnight to 3 am or so and are thus complimentary but also competitive hormones in our daily symphony of the interplay of our anabolic with our catabolic hormone systems. HGH and Melatonin being anabolic in nature, they tend to suppress catabolic hormones like cortisol and adrenaline ... so when we have excess, say, melatonin on top of an already low adrenal function and at the very time when our adrenal function is at its lowest ebb, its no wonder such intense though temporary plunges into nocturnal hypoglycemia can occur compete with sudden night terror dreams and waking with sweaty palms and a pounding fluttery heart!

People who are deficient in their melatonin production at night will often benefit from sublingual supplemental doses in the 1 to 3 mg range for a period of time. But be careful not to take too much for too long every single night in order to prevent overly suppressing your night time cortisol function too once your melatonin levels have been restored to normal healthy levels. doing so can result in build up of too much melatonin and thus it can contribute to this very same issue of having too low out of whack cortisol such that you cannot produce enough during its lowest daily edd anyway to avoid such a nocturnal hypoglycemic crash.

For those folks with adrenal dysfunction, which includes a lot of Afibber in my assessment, there are ways to help boost your adrenal function again to some degree and a number of specific herbs like Ashwagangha, Holy basil, Rhodiola Rosea,and a handful of other adrenal adaptogenic herbs can help, also combined with 2 to 3 grams of Vitamin C a day and take a good co-enzymated B-Complex , P5P (B6), Biotin and extra B5 to help boost ones adrenal function naturally to some degree. In any event, there are tons of good resources on treating acquired adrenal dysfunction.

Hope this review gives some of you some ideas and insight that resonant with your own experience.

Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/02/2017 10:06AM by Shannon.

Well, that happens to me perhaps once every week, or less. The episode lasts less that a few (4 -5) minutes, and when I put my head down on the pillow, it usually just sort of fades away. My doctors have told me to ignore it. There seem to me multiple reasons for the phenomenon, and I am being treated for sleep apnea (mask used whenever in bed) and AFib (medications and cardioversions from time to time.

That said, I now ignore it. (well, I'm a little scared) but I never fail to go back to sleep once it stops and it rarely recurs that night. I have good doctors after several years of having it happen, I'm still here. It has nothing to do with the times I slip back into AFIB. This is probably not reassuring; so I'd suggest reporting it to your doctor next time your have an appointment. Always report things to your doctor.

I did manage to get the little Chinese EKG tracer onto my chest and take a reading once just as the fast beat was stopping, and there was no arrhythmia detected, for what that's worth. I am 70 years old.

Jeff, from South Philly.

Shannon, great explanation of the adrenal response....it helps me understand exactly what's happening to me from 5am to approx 6:30 most mornings...

Can't claim that an irregular heartbeat has ever woken me (touch wood.. ) but for the past 4-5 months I've been jarred awake many times as I'm drifting off, for seemingly no reason, only to find my heart pounding in my chest. I thing it may just be a single PAC that has set my heart pounding. My father passed away recently and I was staying at my mum's to keep her company on Saturday night and it occurred twice as I was drifting off. It can be so uncomfortable.

Thank you for this post

Shannon, thank you for this post. It is one of the best explanations that I have heard. I have had afib off and on for a year. I am 67 years old, former athlete and stayed in good shape, exercised my whole life and eat a great diet. 5 years ago I was told my a Naturopath that my adrenals are shot. I went through a very stressful 5 year legal battle previous that that diagnosis so it was not a surprise to me. Most recently, my afib comes on either before I go to bed or immediately when I lay down. It continues for most the night and then immediately goes away when I wake up. Does that sound like afib related to some adrenal/cortisol issue? Also, what is the best testing to get done to assess adrenal/cortisol functioning. I have done a spit test in the past.

Thanks for your help.