A little help?

[juice60]

Im 23 years old and ever since i was 17 i developed a funny beat in my heart. Feels like if it skips. I was going thru a state of depression when i was younger and i started to stress myself out a lot. That is when i felt that "skip". Ive been to the doctors and they took a real good look at my heart and all they found where premature heart beats. But now im feeling them more regularly. Stress/anxiety is a bit of a issue with me right now because of it. Could it be a heart problem? Or am im doing this to myself?

[jean196448]

You are getting what is called normal ectopic beats which are normal, people get these and don't know they are having them, when I first had my VT episode I had these for 24/7 and they were not very nice at all.

[seaweib]

As previous poster pointed out, these are nothing to be concerned about since the doctors checked out your heart and you have no abnormalities.

While stress and anxiety undoubetedly cause or  contribute to premature beats, there are also many other things in one's diet that also can cause them.  For many people it is excess carbs, sugar, alcohol, or caffeine.  You may try tinkering with your diet and see if you can get the premature beats to subside.

Also, many claim that exercise will cut down on them.  I know someone personally who had lots of trouble with premature beats, she began a jogging regimen and now experiences them very rarely.

There are probably things you can do to reduce the skipped beats but the most important thing is not to stress out over them and relax!!

[is_something_wrong]

Hi,

You're likely not "doing this to yourself", but yes, negative emotions (anxiety, stress, depression) are likely to increase the frequency of "skipped" beats (premature heart beats, PACs or PVCs).

You need to remember that premature beats are normal. Everyone have them, and we notice them more or less. Some of us are blissfully unaware of what their hearts are doing, some of us freak out every time we feel a little skip or chest discomfort.

Our ability to produce "skipped" beats is necessary and sometimes life saving. If the natural "pacemaker" for various reasons should fail, other parts of the heart are ready to take over the function so you stay alive. But when we are stressed, those parts are kicking in, competing with the natural pacemaker. That's just how we are built :-)

Yes, your anxiety and stress are probably to blame, but again, this is a normal phenomenon.