Can tension, heavy breathing and movement affect EKGs?

[CBaz44]

Hello, yesterday I went to get a physical. All my numbers and sounds were good (and I don't drink or smoke, plus my family history is perfect), and then was given an EKG. At first the tech struggled to keep the nodes on the right side (they kept falling), and I started panicking. I got real tense, was breathing heavily and twiddling my fingers and toes. When the doc looked at it she said my EKG was ok, but abnormal (incomplete right bundle branch block). I told her I have anxiety and panic a lot, and that I was real tense and breathing heavy during the EKG. I asked her if that could have caused the abnormality and she literally said she didn't know.

[achillea]

Body movement--muscular activity--can indeed affect an EKG, and your doctor, if she has an MD, certainly knows that.

When you have this test, you should lie still.