tachycardia

[KellyU123]

I am a 33 year old female with a heart rate of about 103-115 standing still. I am a high strung person and definitely have some form of anxiety. I don't have panic attacks unless I am extremely concerned about a random symptom. But for instance, I am currenlty feeling healthy (other than the tachycardia) so worry is not causing this. I am taking a biology class that reminded me once again that I have a abnormally high heart rate for someone w/ no other symptoms. I start out on the treadmill or exercise bike and after 2 minutes I am up to 120 beats p/m. If I run or pedal fast I beat around 160, I know that at my age it is not in the safe range. So, what do I do. I don't exercise often and maybe I am out of shape??? Could that cause my heart to beat too high?

I have seen my MD and a cardiologist for this and they seem to think that there is nothing wrong with my heart. I have had the stress test and ultrasound on my heart. My mitro valve seems to be normal, I am concerned that there is something other than anxiety that could cause this. What types of problems could cause this. I trust my doctor but I feel that she is not proactive enough. I have 4 young children that I need to be here for and don't want to go through invasive diagnostic procedures.  Could you give me some advice as to what I need to address with my MD.

[newzor]

Your heartrate may be high because you are out of shape,
and anxiety/stress can easily cause the heartrate to increase because then the body releases adrenalin.

Adrenalin is like ultra-mega-coffee.

If you want to heal your stress and anxiety, i do not recommend pharmaceuticals.

benzo's and ssri's have many side-effects, effectively once u want to withdraw from them. i suggest u read horror stories from places like paxilprogress.org or benzoisland.org if you or one of your loved ones ever decide to use pharmaceutical drugs to combat depression or anxiety.

i recommend relaxation techniques such as vipassana.
http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html

there you can read a free book that contains all the information you need to learn to transform anxiety and depression into peace and happiness.
it takes a couple of months to adjust your behavior but after 1 or 2 years you will have made incredible progress.


some people fail at adjusting their behavior even though they have made a serious effort for a period of time that is long enough for it to start to work,
through techniques such as vipassana meditation.

for these people, as well as people who experience lifethreatening depression or anxiety,
pharmaceutical drugs may be the best option... but they should only be used for as brief periods as possible.

if it's not even necessary, don't bother going on them.
it's not worth the potential side-effects.

[newzor]

if it makes you feel any better... when i'm not taking pharmaceuticals
i sometimes have a heartrate of 120 standing,
and 140 walking or slow bicycling.

[itdood]

The exercise rates actually seem normal to me.  Those are in the target ranges for your age.  Mine will response similarly, I'll be up to 120 in about 2 minutes of warm-up.  If I run or pedal fast it'll go up to 160-170.  

Not sure what could be casing the at rest tach.  When there is no concern or cause it's labeled "inappropriate sinus tachycardia" or IST.  Give that a search

I learned a hard lesson about exercise recently.  Start off very slow if you're out of shape.  Be consistent and there's no need to set world records.