Exercise can both cause and manage heart palpitations. It can cause palpitations in those with heart disease or who are unfit, but can also help treat them by increasing heart rate and eliminating irregularities. Treatment methods depend on identifying the cause, with medication and stress reduction being common approaches.
Heart palpitations occur when your heartbeat is faster or slower than usual and feels like it is irregular, pounding, or racing. The connection between exercise and heart palpitations is multifaceted, because exercise can be both a cause of heart palpitations and a method of managing them. Exercise can cause palpitations in patients with heart disease or in those who are unfit, because strenuous or excessive activity can put a strain on the heart. Existing arrhythmias often go away when the heart rate increases, which is why exercise can also be helpful in treating palpitations.
Exercise causes heart palpitations through elevation of heart rate. The patient may have a healthy heart and simply be unfit, or a diseased heart that labors under the strain of palpitations and exercise. The increased heart rate causes blood to be pumped through the heart faster, resulting in abnormal electrical activity in the sinus and atrioventricular nodes of the heart. The abnormal electrical signals cause atrial contractions called tachycardia, which refers to a rapid heart rate, and brachycardia, which refers to a slow heart rate.
Many patients find that they experience palpitations after their exercise session, instead of during exercise. This adds another dimension to the connection between exercise and palpitations, because activity causes an increase in heart rate, which eliminates the irregularity of any existing arrhythmias. After the exercise is finished, the patient’s adrenaline takes some time to return to normal levels, but the heart rate returns more rapidly. This imbalance can cause palpitations, which are usually worse than they would be at rest.
A primary method of managing palpitations in otherwise healthy patients, exercise counteracts arrhythmia due to its ability to increase heart rate. When the heart begins to beat faster, the blood pumping through the ventricles forces the evenness of the beats, which overcomes the irregularity. However, it can only be used as a method of treating palpitations in patients with no indications of heart disease, as the combination of exercise and palpitations could lead to heart failure. Patients are also often advised to monitor their heart rate during exercise, to avoid the risk of palpitations.
Treatment methods for palpitations are mainly based on accurately identifying the cause. Patients who regularly experience palpitations after exercise may be prescribed medications such as beta-blockers, which reduce the effects of adrenaline on the heart by lowering adrenaline levels in the blood. Stress reduction and better health management also help reduce the risks associated with exercise and heart palpitations.
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