Chicken or eggs...

So I read that anxiety can trigger afib...
but how much does afib physically trigger anxiety?

I've been feeling super moody but it has been in real see-saw sort of way. Like I will feel super anxious one minute then oddly calm in another. I noticed last week, when I had a lot of those 'oddly calm' moments, that when I felt oddly calm I was in NSR. This week I've had a lot of anxious feelings, and when I have them I seem to be out of rhythm when I check. Now I'm wondering if when I start to afib or go out of rhythm, if that actually makes me physically feel anxious, (odd heart feelings) which then creates anxiety.

My afib "pattern" (if you want to call it that) as best I can tell is a real mix of short streaks NSR , runs of arythmia with handfuls of afib thrown in here and there... Occasionally I have what I think is noticable afib 'episode" that is truly noticable, but mostly I don't notice, other than these moody feelings. I feel like my mood is flipping around almost as quickly as my heart and it feels like my heart is dictating my mood more so than my mood effecting my heart.

So if anxiety can make your heart feel odd, can having an oddly behaving heart make you feel anxious when you otherwise have little reason to be anxious?

Not sure if any of that will make sense to anyone else, but I thought I;d put it out there in case anyone else can relate.

So a simpler question. Since I seem to be extra anxious since getting this diagnosis... does anyone have recommendations for how to best deal with the anxious feelings? It's been fairly crazy making this week.

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bolimasa
So I read that anxiety can trigger afib...
but how much does afib physically trigger anxiety?

I've been feeling super moody but it has been in real see-saw sort of way. Like I will feel super anxious one minute then oddly calm in another. I noticed last week, when I had a lot of those 'oddly calm' moments, that when I felt oddly calm I was in NSR. This week I've had a lot of anxious feelings, and when I have them I seem to be out of rhythm when I check. Now I'm wondering if when I start to afib or go out of rhythm, if that actually makes me physically feel anxious, (odd heart feelings) which then creates anxiety.

My afib "pattern" (if you want to call it that) as best I can tell is a real mix of short streaks NSR , runs of arythmia with handfuls of afib thrown in here and there... Occasionally I have what I think is noticable afib 'episode" that is truly noticable, but mostly I don't notice, other than these moody feelings. I feel like my mood is flipping around almost as quickly as my heart and it feels like my heart is dictating my mood more so than my mood effecting my heart.

So if anxiety can make your heart feel odd, can having an oddly behaving heart make you feel anxious when you otherwise have little reason to be anxious?

Not sure if any of that will make sense to anyone else, but I thought I;d put it out there in case anyone else can relate.

So a simpler question. Since I seem to be extra anxious since getting this diagnosis... does anyone have recommendations for how to best deal with the anxious feelings? It's been fairly crazy making this week.

Short term: Ativan
Long term: aerobic exercise, meditation, talk therapy, yoga

Very early in my afib career, I had a 2.5 month episode. I thought I was doing really well. I did a lot of exercise out of rhythm, determined not to let afib stop me. I converted with 300 mg of flecainide, 20 hours after taking the med. For the next month, I actually felt "high" and elated. Obviously afib impacted me much more than I was aware of. My body was very aware of the lack of afib when it was gone.

Though I've not been out of NSR for a long period of time since, I don't and won't exercise during afib as I think it just adds stress to an already stressed heart. I know that others have a different opinion about this.

Don't know if this helps, but prior to getting an episode(and I get them often, super fast and extended periods) I feel "strange" bit depressed, bit moody, tired, bloated, just out of sorts, and a bit anxious.

I don't think AF immediately, more... what the hecks wrong now. This can be for a day or two. Then bam, I go into AF with all the associated symptoms I get, like nausea chest pain dizziness, s.o.b etc

When I come out of an episode, I am totally aware of it, I can't explain it, but it is so relaxing, so calming so peaceful for about 30 seconds, until real life kicks in again. If I could bottle the feeling when I flick back into SR I'd be wealthy

I just think they are our body's responses to events that may be dangerous or otherwise and our hormones are reacting in a proper way.

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JoyWin
Don't know if this helps, but prior to getting an episode(and I get them often, super fast and extended periods) I feel "strange" bit depressed, bit moody, tired, bloated, just out of sorts, and a bit anxious.

I don't think AF immediately, more... what the hecks wrong now. This can be for a day or two. Then bam, I go into AF with all the associated symptoms I get, like nausea chest pain dizziness, s.o.b etc

When I come out of an episode, I am totally aware of it, I can't explain it, but it is so relaxing, so calming so peaceful for about 30 seconds, until real life kicks in again. If I could bottle the feeling when I flick back into SR I'd be wealthy

I just think they are our body's responses to events that may be dangerous or otherwise and our hormones are reacting in a proper way.

Well reading you description it sounds like I am not alone... That sounds a lot like how I feel. I have noticed that I don't really notice the Afib as much as I notice when I'm out of it... That truly is a marvelous feeling... We do need to bottle it!

I have noticed that AF is more likely to strike in the night after a day when I have been particularly bad-tempered and angry about something. I don't see why particularly negative mood can't assist in precipitating AF. In this world of quantum non-reality/non-locality ('nothing real exists') everything IS in the mind!

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Socalsteve

Short term: Ativan
Long term: aerobic exercise, meditation, talk therapy, yoga

Trying to avoid the ativan.
I am going to have to work harder on the exercise issue and keeping my stress levels lower... the later is hard, nut I'm finding it interesting how much of my mood seems to correlate more with what my heart is doing, not what I'm doing or my stress.

Today, thus far, I feel pretty good, the last few days I was a wreck... Nothing much is different in my life to today than the rest of the week.... but my arrhythmia seem a bit better Thus my chicken or egg question.

Weird thing... earlier this week when I was feeling so emotionally shitty, I checked me monitor and found myself "no abnormal" which made me question my theory about my heart activity affecting my moods.... but when I looked at my trace, it was actually weird... my rhythm was consistent,
but much of the trace I had the big R wave and nothing else... no T waves no P wave... just and R peak, flat line, R peak, flat line...
I have no idea what that means... but it seemed weird and I was feeling weird.

Not that my over analyzing this is probably doing me much good, but I can;t seem to help myself from trying to get in tune with my body and figure out what it is doing.

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bolimasa
but much of the trace I had the big R wave and nothing else... no T waves no P wave... just and R peak, flat line, R peak, flat line...
I have no idea what that means... but it seemed weird and I was feeling weird.

That just sounds like a bad connection between you and the machine. Not sure what yours is like since it's not the Kardia but usually it helps to clean off the contacts and perhaps wet your fingertips a bit.

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wolfpack

but much of the trace I had the big R wave and nothing else... no T waves no P wave... just and R peak, flat line, R peak, flat line...
I have no idea what that means... but it seemed weird and I was feeling weird.


That just sounds like a bad connection between you and the machine. Not sure what yours is like since it's not the Kardia but usually it helps to clean off the contacts and perhaps wet your fingertips a bit.

Hmm I had not thought of that... the beginning of the trace first 15 seconds seemed normal than it switched.
I do usually try to wet my palms before measuring.... though who knows what I did that time.

Later in the day I had the same no R wave thing pop up for a handful of beats in the middle of a trace.

I have noticed that I can get jiggly lines if I move while measuring... so I try to sit still and hold my monitor consistently... though I'm sure sometimes I must fail at that.

Very interesting topic as I’ve been wondering the same lately. I’ve always been anxious, but never had panic attacks or anything close to it. This summer when my first ablation failed (after only 5 months) I began having panic attacks. My episodes were very uncomfortable with a high rate. After an episode stopped the anxiety remained- crazy anxiety for a few days after a bad episode- and then my mood crashed. I think it goes both ways and is complicated. I was forced to get Ativan and it slowed my rate during bad episodes which really helped. I don’t take it often but it’s good to have as an option when things get really bad- otherwise my rate goes so high I’m more apt to end up in the ER. I’ve had good luck with yoga, please acupuncture and walking- they all help. Yoga particularly- and I’m a high strung person who never thought i could do it. Might be worth a go.

I second to yoga. I believe afib is not linked with anxiety, but PACs are. And PACs lead to afib. So, it's wise avoiding conditions creating those ectopics. And, for me, the conditions are all the things affecting vagal tone. They are mostly related to digestion, excess exercise or too abruptly starting exercise, tiredness, anxiety and infections. When I'm in this "receptive" state, a lot of things can trigger PACs and then afib. When I'm not, nearly anything I thought was a trigger is not a trigger.

The yoga factor for relaxing and diverting focus from a constant 'agitator' or worrying about the 'what if's' is always a good move.

There are very real effects of stressing continually about whether or not your heart is going to act up.
Those who are high stress because of job, family or just naturally 'up tight' people often put themselves at higher
risk because they just can't relax.

It's helpful to address adrenal issues because we can't continually be in the "flight or fight" stage without adrenal burnout and long term effects of that dysfunction. Adrenal support nutrients are often very healing and useful.

A test is available from Genova Diagnostics that gives the details on adrenal function and depending on results, nutritional support can normalize/stabilize adrenal function and the host can tolerate stress much better... including ectopics and AF.

Until you know what's imbalanced, it's difficult to make progress in managing stress... but definitely, yoga and meditation helps significantly. You just have to make time to do it consistently.

[www.gdx.net]

Jackie

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Pompon
I second to yoga. I believe afib is not linked with anxiety, but PACs are. And PACs lead to afib. So, it's wise avoiding conditions creating those ectopics. And, for me, the conditions are all the things affecting vagal tone. They are mostly related to digestion, excess exercise or too abruptly starting exercise, tiredness, anxiety and infections. When I'm in this "receptive" state, a lot of things can trigger PACs and then afib. When I'm not, nearly anything I thought was a trigger is not a trigger.

I wonder if there is research out there on this? As best I can tell I have tons and tons of PAC's and not so much Afib (30 day event monitor said 5% afib) I still don't understand why the EP seems completely uninterested in my PAC's.... I just sent the office some traces and note explaining how those traces full of PACs seem to be my norm since I know the 30 day event monitor ignored those. I'm scheduled for an ablation in a week and I really wanted them to clearly now that my heart is wacky most of the time.

I get super confused about the stress/anxiety link.
Clearly I'm a person with anxiety and stress problems, that is no news to me. So I suppose I'm not surprised to suddenly have this problem pop up this year, as a year ago I switched jobs and my new job has been really stressful, and I really have not been getting enough exercise. The part I don't not get is that my heart weirdness does not seem very correlated with stress... the episode that started this mess began when I was up at a friend's cabin on a holiday weekend, other times I was pretty sure I was afibing have come after evenings out with friends or other unstressful times... Those 3 days this week when I felt crappy were no different than yesterday when I did not. (As I said in my OP, I felt this week that my heart was making me feel anxious, not that the converse) So yeah, I'm confused.

All that said, I do suppose this afib problem is the wakeup call that I need to do something about my stress problem. I do know more exercise is key... I just need to figure out how to work that back into my schedule. Was reading about mindfulness this week.... which all sounds good but I don't really picture it being the answer. I do need to figure out something though...

bolimasa - anxiety and stress are links to adrenal glad function or lack of proper function due to adrenal fatigue (aka burnout) when the stress goes on for years. I've corresponded by PM and email with a very large number of afibbers who are plagued with the stress/anxiety problem...worrying about if and when, the many extra beats, and total fear about going into the next afib event. Many are actually making the stress/anxiety worse by continually monitoring to see what's happening and it's often observed that any little deviation will propel an outright event. I encourage those people to stop the monitoring and just learn to recognize the variations in heart rate and blips are part of the whole scene with afib... and obsessing over numbers can just add to the stress/anxiety factor.


Because it's so typical for afibbers to also have complaints about stress and anxiety, four years ago, I offered this post on the topic...
Stress, Anxiety, Insomnia…. Sympathetic Dominance…and more

[www.afibbers.org]

Spend some time here and also consider trying Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) at home for an easy diversion that really does work to reduce the stress and anxiety. There is a formal post on that as well.

Also, here's one my responses to a question on stress and anxiety from a post last year...

Stress, Magnesium and Heart Health

Stress Combined With Magnesium Deficiency Can Wreak Havoc on Your Heart.

If stress hormones cause blood magnesium to fall to levels that are so low (hypomagnesemic) that the cells are abnormally low in magnesium, an indication of magnesium depletion, arterial spasms can result. How? In studies in which a volunteer was slowly infused with the stress hormone adrenaline for a period of three hours, there was a decline of plasma magnesium, as well as of calcium, potassium, and sodium. Since adequate magnesium levels in arterial muscle cells cause the arteries to relax, or dilate, arteries constrict when magnesium levels are low. This is a consequence of calcium moving into the cells of the arteries to replace the missing magnesium; calcium causes arterial muscle contraction. If this occurs in the coronary arteries, the chest pain of angina pectoris can ensue as a direct consequence of magnesium loss. The angina pain is an alarm signal saying: Stop! Unwind! Relax!” In experiments such as the one mentioned above, when the infusion of adrenaline stopped, the level of that hormone in the blood drops after only five minutes, but it takes the heart half an hour to slow to its normal rate. The blood potassium level rises to normal again in that same half hour, but the level of the magnesium in the blood can remain lowered even longer. Thus, if magnesium stores are low when an acute stress reaction develops, the heart is endangered. Severe, unremitting stress can deplete magnesium, creating a substantial risk of injury to the heart – its muscle and its control of how fast or regularly it beats.

Magnesium deficiency exacerbates these physiological reactions to acute stress, while mildly high blood magnesium tones them down. In addition, in a magnesium-deficient body, stress elicits a greater hormonal response than it would if that body were adequate in magnesium – quite a bit greater. The stress response is thus even more intense, making the magnesium requirement even higher and less likely to be met.

Article By Mildred S. Seelig, MD., MPH and Andrea Rosanoff, PhD
Source: [www.nutritionalmagnesium.org]

Dr. Seelig passed away a number of years ago and Dr. Rosanoff continues on with magnesium research

This is a link to many of her research reports on magnesium
[mgwater.com]

Plus, of course, there is the famous book by Dr. Seelig.....
The Magnesium Factor - How one simple nutrient can prevent, treat, and reverse...
*high blood pressure,
*heart disease,
*diabetes and
*other chronic conditions.

bolimasa - anxiety and stress are links to adrenal gland function or lack of proper function due to adrenal fatigue (aka burnout) when the stress goes on for years. I've corresponded by PM and email with a very large number of afibbers who are plagued with the stress/anxiety problem...worrying about if and when, the many extra beats, and total fear about going into the next afib event. Many are actually making the stress/anxiety worse by continually monitoring to see what's happening and it's often observed that any little deviation will propel an outright event. I encourage those people to stop the monitoring and just learn to recognize the variations in heart rate and blips are part of the whole scene with afib... and obsessing over numbers can just add to the stress/anxiety factor.

Because it's so typical for afibbers to also have complaints about stress and anxiety, four years ago, I offered this post on the topic...

Stress, Anxiety, Insomnia…. Sympathetic Dominance…and more
[www.afibbers.org]

Spend some time here and also consider trying Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) at home for an easy diversion that really does work to reduce the stress and anxiety. There is a formal post on that as well.



Additionally, here's one my responses to a question on stress and anxiety from a post last year...

Stress, Magnesium and Heart Health

Stress Combined With Magnesium Deficiency Can Wreak Havoc on Your Heart.

If stress hormones cause blood magnesium to fall to levels that are so low (hypomagnesemic) that the cells are abnormally low in magnesium, an indication of magnesium depletion, arterial spasms can result. How? In studies in which a volunteer was slowly infused with the stress hormone adrenaline for a period of three hours, there was a decline of plasma magnesium, as well as of calcium, potassium, and sodium. Since adequate magnesium levels in arterial muscle cells cause the arteries to relax, or dilate, arteries constrict when magnesium levels are low. This is a consequence of calcium moving into the cells of the arteries to replace the missing magnesium; calcium causes arterial muscle contraction. If this occurs in the coronary arteries, the chest pain of angina pectoris can ensue as a direct consequence of magnesium loss. The angina pain is an alarm signal saying: Stop! Unwind! Relax!” In experiments such as the one mentioned above, when the infusion of adrenaline stopped, the level of that hormone in the blood drops after only five minutes, but it takes the heart half an hour to slow to its normal rate. The blood potassium level rises to normal again in that same half hour, but the level of the magnesium in the blood can remain lowered even longer. Thus, if magnesium stores are low when an acute stress reaction develops, the heart is endangered. Severe, unremitting stress can deplete magnesium, creating a substantial risk of injury to the heart – its muscle and its control of how fast or regularly it beats.

Magnesium deficiency exacerbates these physiological reactions to acute stress, while mildly high blood magnesium tones them down. In addition, in a magnesium-deficient body, stress elicits a greater hormonal response than it would if that body were adequate in magnesium – quite a bit greater. The stress response is thus even more intense, making the magnesium requirement even higher and less likely to be met.

Article By Mildred S. Seelig, MD., MPH and Andrea Rosanoff, PhD
Source: [www.nutritionalmagnesium.org]

Dr. Seelig passed away a number of years ago and Dr. Rosanoff continues on with magnesium research

This is a link to many of her research reports on magnesium
[mgwater.com]

Plus, of course, there is the famous book by Dr. Seelig.....
The Magnesium Factor - How one simple nutrient can prevent, treat, and reverse...
*high blood pressure,
*heart disease,
*diabetes and
*other chronic conditions.

And...REMINDER if you aren't making and using the home-made version of Magnesium Bicarbonate water... aka Waller Water or WW... it's worth a try to help get your tissue acidity back into alkaline range where you are more 'mellow' and less likely to be so irritated at every little blip or other of life's annoyances .
Easy, economical. I wouldn't go a day without it.

Here's a link to the background and then the shorter version of the recipe for making at home follows the historical introduction:

[www.afibbers.org]

I also have a great little booklet on Stress, Anxiety and insomnia in pdf form if you are interested in reading, send me a PM and I'll see that you receive it.

There are also some well-known supplements that are formulated specifically to reduce stress, anxiety and help with sleep. I can review those if you're interested.

Hope this helps,

Jackie

You could certainly give some of the Ayurvedic herbs, such as Holy Basil and Ashwaghanda, a try. I’ve been using them for a year now. I couldn’t really tell you if I’m less stressed or anxious than before, but I can certainly tell you they haven’t had any bad effects.