Heart Palpitations From Anxiety: How Do You Stop Them?

Medically reviewed by Dakari Quimby, PhD

Heart palpitations from anxiety make your heart feel like it's racing. This sensation is the product of the fight, flight, or freeze response, in which your body responds to protect you from danger. Heart palpitations from anxiety aren't usually dangerous, but they can increase your anxiety and lead to other complications.

This article discusses various medical and nonmedical approaches to stop heart palpitations due to anxiety.

What to Know About Heart Palpitations

A normal heart rate ranges from 60 to 100 beats per minute. When it increases to over 100, you might feel it beating or notice a pounding or skipping sensation. Generally, palpitations from anxiety are temporary and infrequent, but they can last longer or come on or stronger with panic attacks.

How to Slow and Stop Anxiety-Induced Heart Palpitations

If your heart palpitations are the result of anxiety and not another condition, the best way to manage the palpitations is to address the underlying cause: anxiety. If you're experiencing heart palpitations due to anxiety, here are some techniques you can try right now to manage your symptoms.

Focus on Your Breathing

Mindfulness, meditation, and deep breathing can help calm your anxiety and steady your heart rate. Anxiety can creep up on you, and you might be able to ignore it until it starts to affect you physically.

Palpitations can be a sign that your anxiety is spilling over from your mood and emotions into your physical function. Try slowing your breathing, meditating, or sitting in a quiet space for a few minutes to calm your mind and body.

Exercise

Being active and exercising isn't just good for your body. Physical activity can support heart health to help prevent underlying causes of heart palpitations, but it also releases endorphins. Endorphins are chemicals your body produces to help you cope with stressful situations, and exercise creates a quick release of these chemicals.

Use Your Body's "Cheat Codes"

You can try a few maneuvers to help your body compensate for any emotional or physical stress you're experiencing. When you feel anxious, your body reacts physically by activating your fight-or-flight response, and heart palpitations are something you might notice with this response.

The vagus nerve acts as a pacemaker for the heart, and specific activities like bearing down as if you were to have a bowel movement and the Valsalva maneuver can sometimes be used to provide immediate control for a high or irregular heart rate.

Eat or Drink

Eating or drinking is a simple, basic task. But by stopping to have a snack or a drink, you are letting your body do an automatic task. The act of swallowing requires you to breathe slower, and this focus can help calm your palpitations.

Ask for Help

If your heart palpitations progress to the point where you feel lightheaded or dizzy, ask for help. Anxiety may be the cause of your heart palpitations, but there are physical reasons this can happen, too. If you have symptoms like chest pain, dizziness, or loss of consciousness, you should get immediate medical attention.

Ask for Help Again

If you've ruled out underlying physical causes and your heart palpitations persist, even after strategies like meditation and refocusing, you may need to consider additional support. Talking to a therapist or licensed counselor can help you address some of the sources of your anxiety and learn to manage it effectively to avoid physical manifestations of these emotions.

Consider Medications

If your anxiety is still causing you physical discomfort after you've tried some behavioral strategies, you may want to talk to a healthcare provider about medication for anxiety.

While the activities and techniques discussed above can help offer immediate relief in the absence of medical aid, if you experience ongoing heart palpitations along with your anxiety, it's important to talk to a healthcare provider for ongoing treatment and support.

Managing Stress and Anxiety Without Medication

About seven million adults are living with anxiety disorders at any given time, and there is a wide range of treatments available.

How you manage your anxiety may be linked to how much it impacts your quality of life. For some people, regular nondrug techniques performed regularly can help keep anxiety and related symptoms under control.

Some strategies that can help you manage anxiety without medication include:

• Mindfulness and meditation activities

• Yoga and other exercises for relaxation

• Breathing exercises to support deep breathing

• Cognitive or behavioral therapy with a licensed counselor or therapist

• Support groups with peers who share your challenges

Related: Best Online Therapy for Anxiety

Medications Prescribed for Anxiety

If nonmedical strategies to manage your anxiety aren't effective and you continue to experience heart palpitations, among other anxiety symptoms, talk to a healthcare provider. They can prescribe you medications to help manage your anxiety.

There are various types of medications to treat anxiety, each with benefits and side effects.
Everyone responds to medications differently. Finding the proper treatment for you may take trial and error or a combination of medications.

Some examples of anxiety medications to discuss with a healthcare provider include:

• Serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs): A type of antidepressant

• Selective serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs): A class of antidepressants

• Tricyclic antidepressants: A type of antidepressant

• Benzodiazepines: A group of medications with a sedative effect; these medications make up the bulk of prescriptions for treating anxiety

• Pregabalin: A medication with a sedative effect that is sometimes used to treat anxiety and sleep problems

• Beta-blockers: Medications usually used to control a high heart rate or blood pressure

• Buspirone: A medication sometimes used to treat generalized anxiety or depression

• Moclobemide: A medication often used as a secondary therapy that is more commonly offered for seasonal affective disorder (SAD)

Many of these medications take some time to experience the full effect. They must be started and stopped gradually. Only use these medications under the guidance of a healthcare provider.

Anxiety, Your Thoughts, and Your Body

Your physical and mental health are closely connected and often interdependent. It's important to remember that anxiety can take a toll on your emotional and physical health.

Heart rate changes, and palpitations are just some of the physical symptoms that can occur with anxiety. Be mindful of any stressors that might accompany your physical symptoms and what you can do to address these issues in your daily life.

Meditation, deep breathing, and other holistic activities can help. A healthcare provider can also refer you to a therapist or prescribe medications for additional support.

Summary

Some people with anxiety experience heart palpitations as a physical symptom. These palpitations don't usually require direct medical treatment but are managed indirectly by getting your stress and anxiety under control.

Talk to a healthcare provider if nonmedical therapies don't relieve your symptoms, and seek immediate medical care if you experience palpitations alongside symptoms like shortness of breath, dizziness, or chest pain.

Read the original article on Verywell Health.