Pounding heart beat everytime I try to fall asleep/ Am I sick or just crazy???????

[Alady]

Hello*** I was wondering if anyone could provide me a little information and possibly some relief to the problem I am experiencing right now.  Every night for the past week or so, when I try to fall asleep, my heart rate accelerates tremendously and pounds like crazy.  Normally I never have any trouble falling asleep so this is becoming somewhat of an annoyance because I actually FEEL sleepy but because my heart beats so fast and so hard it keeps me awake.  I can feel it throughtout my body and it lasts for hours. I try so hard to fall asleep that I have come up with little tricks to kind of "pych myself out".  Like I try rolling over in different positions trying to offset the rhythm so hopefully when it starts again it will be normal. I try to clear my mind totally.  After a while I will doze off, (without me knowing but I'm not complaining) but I'll wake like 45 min later only to realize that my heart is still beating as hard as ever.  If I get really annoyed I'll try to stand up, walk around or go for a drink of water.  But nothing helps.  And I'm so sleepy. As soon as I settle back in it starts again. I have had anxiety issues in the past but I think what made it worse for me is that at first I didn't know what it was.  Then once I became more aware of what an actual "anxiety attack" was it just kind of went away on its own.  And I do admit I was dealing with a whole lot at the time.  But now, on the contrary, there has been no extreme changes in my life or anything I would say I am really stressed or worried over; @ night all I pretty much want to do is sleep and I can't.  It's coming to the point now that I am almost expecting my "nightly episodes", like I'm looking for it to start.  And this is an obsession (an unhealthy one at that) that I don't care to have!  The way my heart beats it feels like to me that it is pumping way too much blood throughout my body for too long of a time,  my heart might burst, or I may die in my sleep.  Its poisoning my thoughts and I wish I knew what to do to make it stop.  I'm afraid. Please help.

[Beanbagger]

So I've been reading these postings about pounding heartbeats, specifically when lying down to sleep at night. Recently I've begun experiencing this same issue. I've been to the doc twice and he attributes it to anxiety.

Some backround: Male, age 64, non-smoker, light drinker, normal weight for my height, take no meds. About two months ago I began to experience shooting pains in both big toes. These episodes became more frequent and I finally when to the doc who thought it might be a nerve impingement and had me do back exercises. The toe pain became less frequent but then I began to develop tingling in my hand and soles of my feet. I started to have difficulty sleeping. At about the same time I gave up coffee and alcohol cold turkey to see it that had any affect on the tingling and insomnia but it didn't seem to make a difference. Then one night I got in bed and my heart began to pound and I felt like a light bulb had been turned on inside me. My blood pressure, normally 115/65, was 145/80. The more it pounded, the more it scared me.I went back to the doc, told him my story, and he said it was most likely caused by anxiety and prescribed lorazepam to me help me sleep.

So now I still have the tingling, most of the time I seem to feel wired, and as I approach bedtime the tingling gets worse and I actually do feel anxious about whether I'll be able to fall and stay asleep. The meds don't always work and I wake up after about an hour, heart pounding, feeling wired, with no sleep in sight.

I'm thinking this is just more than plain anxiety and that's there is something neurological going on. Anyway, I thought I would post this to see if there was anyone with symptoms similar to mine.

Your thought?

[Jxe]

Did you figure it out? This is similar to my symptoms. I have numbness in my fingers and a wired feeling. Get in touch if you can.

[Harpnlyre]

Hi everyone, I am very very encouraged and grateful to see that so many people have this similar disorder.  That sounds bad. I am not grateful that you are suffering from this. You know what I mean. There is a sense of relief that I am not crazy and hardly alone.  My story:

At age 21 I got in a bad car accident.  Car was totaled, but I walked out of it pretty much fine.  Soft tissue trauma/injuries.   I was not alarmed in the ensuing weeks and months when I began dealing with a lot of bodyaches and sleepless nights. However after several months my condition was not improving. By the time the aches and pains subsided, I was still dealing with  sleeplessness and non-restorative sleep. One of the features of my condition was that I had a normal heart rate, but when lying down to sleep it felt like it was beating very very very hard.   So hard that with each heartbeat it felt like someone was thumping me in my neck and in my head.   Long story short, all of the standard tests and screenings showed no problems with my heart. I did not go as far as having a 24/48 hour monitor, though I plan to request one now.  Over the years, I just learned to cope with it one way or another.

Fast forward 13 years. I am 34 years old, I have a daughter who is a year and a half. In combination with the sleeplessness of having a child, and also occasional periods of heightened stress or anxiety, nothing extraordinary, just the ordinary things that people deal with, my life has become  unmanageable when I have flareups. After sitting on this for more than a decade, I have recently begun doing my own due diligence and looking into treatment options.   Among the posts that I've seen thus far, I've seen only a couple that seem identical to my condition. Namely, the heavy heartbeat is constant regardless of  stress or anxiety. During periods of heightened stress, the symptoms are simply magnified. Secondly, I do not experience any significant increase in heart rate. It is just the intensity of the beat.  I consider myself to be in very good health overall. I'm 6 foot one, 175 pounds, non-smoker, eat well, and I work out four days a week swimming.  Anyways, I am very grateful to have found this thread and felt I should contribute with my own story. Good luck to everyone.

[DDvv12]

Thank you all for the posts.


I am a healthy 24 year old. No drugs, no smoking and I have been experiencing really hard heartbeats over the last two weeks. No history of any heart problems in my family, and no unusual stresses/reasons for anxiety. I also exercise regularly.

A little over a month ago I noticed heart palpitations and thus reduced my caffeine intake to try and control them... About a week ago this situation started affecting my sleep. My heart was beating so hard it felt like a jackhammer at night. I turned up the TV to drown them out before going to sleep. I tried different positions, drinking more water, sleeping more, reading before bed, and showering at different times.

I also began keeping track of my BPM at bedtime and when I woke up, and the speed was normal at all times: not too fast, just "hard".

I went to a walk-in clinic and did blood tests. Blood pressure was normal, and the doc didn't hear anything off. The blood tests all came back fine.

A few days ago I grabbed a stethoscope and listened - I don't recommend this! Every few heartbeats, one would be slightly delayed, and the one that followed would be really HARD. It drove me crazy.It seemed very unusual as I also heard some quick double beats and other unusual rhythms. I went to the ER to do an ECG and surprise: everything seemed normal. The doctor informed me that it was only a 6 second sample and it may not have caught what I was describing.

At the end of this week I have a 48hr holter test booked which I hope may answer some questions.

All in all, this is affecting my quality of life negatively. I have no answers as to what it could be, and the worst part is I don't think I'll be having a normal night of sleep for the next few weeks.

Just wanted to share my experience on this journey as my family and friends think I "need to relax". Thank you all for sharing tips and tricks to getting a situation like this under control.

[Razumoc]

I have no advice, but would like to express my thanks for all the posts. I've been up all night with this, more or less for the first time (I had a similar experience during the day a couple of months ago) and its now 6am. Reassuring that so many have the same symptoms, even if I'm still awake!

[Rastislav]

I've got the same problem but few months ago I had pain in neck and some problems with my left hand too so I asked to have MRI of my neck and my disk 6,7 are pinching nerves going to my arm. I read few articles related to this problem and many people complain about the same thing. Left arm and chest discomfort. In many cases chest discomfort it is not heart problem but neck problem. I had holter monitor twice last year for 3 days, stress test and my heart and arteries are perfect. I started to do some shoulder and neck exercise  and I feel better now

[Lindsayat]

Hi I have been having somewhat of the same problem. I am 20 years old and when lying down or taking a nap or going to sleep my heart beat gets faster and can feel it like its going to jump out of my chest sometimes. I've gone to the doctors before for palpitations with a skipping heart beats but they went awhile for awhile. I'm not sure if this is the same. I feel short of breath, I have chest pain on the left side, and a couple occasions I found myself not breathing in my sleep for a few seconds. I also feel that I need to take deep breaths.I am easily tired and I get migraines This is very uncomfortable. Unfortunately I also have a seizure disorder, and stress way to much. I'm not sure if this is just stress or anxiety or nothing at all. What do u guys think?