sleep deprived, anxiety, too much cardio and fear of having cardiac arrest

[tinkerbel19]

Palpitations are hard to control especially when you don't have enough sleep. I want to dance to the music and cry my heart out but I'm afraid that I will have cardiac arrest because of lack of sleep. This times where you can just sit down and see the people dancing in front of you.

[jkl5500]

Have you talked all this over with a doctor? I recommend that you do it soon if you haven't.

[tinkerbel19 in reply to jkl5500]

I have I' took meds then I stopped. Then I took meds agian and stopped again

[Jeff1943]

tinkerbel19, I remember you saying that your troubles started some months ago when your grandmother died. I note from your previous posts that you've been checked out by your doctor and have seen a psychiatrist. That's good. Because it confirms that your palpitations, sleep deprivation and fears of cardiac arrest aren't due to physical illness. They are caused by anxiety and that's good news because anxiety is a lot easier to cure than a failing heart.

I think your grandmother's death hit you harder than you realise. I think your grieving started the anxiety ball rolling: the anxiety causes the symptoms which you respond to with fear that causes more anxiety that causes more symptoms that causes more fear that causes more anxiety. You get caught in a self-perpetuating vicious circle that never seems to end. But it can be made to end.

When our nervous system becomes sensitised by too much stress, overwork, worry or grief it starts to send out false signals. For a start we tend to exaggerate every slight fear or worry that comes our way. And sensitised nerves are brilliant at imitatating real physical illness.

What has all this got to do with you, you may ask? Your palpitations are a normal symptom of anxiety and are not going to send you into cardiac arrest. If your palps were caused by something other than your anxiety and grief your doctors would have picked up on it by now.

Did you know the heart muscle is the largest and strongest muscle in your body? It can put up with missed beats and a fast heart rate no problem. Only if your pulse rate reaches 200bpm for any length of time should you seek medical help and I bet your pulse is nowhere near that.

Of course you can't sleep, there's too much going on in your mind for that. When you calm down and slow down sleep will come soon enough.

Your other problem, the fear of your impending death, is another very common symptom of anxiety. Remember what I said about how anxiety exaggerates small normal fears into major obsessions? That I believe is the cause of your intrusive thought.

So as an anxiety observer of 45 years standing I tell you this. Be reassured that you are not going to die prematurely. You are not going to experience cardiac arrest. If your inability to sleep began to affect the functioning of your body your mind would just put you to sleep.

So you now have understanding and reassurance. You know that anxiety is limited in what it can do: it can't kill you, disable you or send you crazy.

To recover you just need to accept all these strange symptoms and feelings for the time being. Let them come and don't fight them. Don't add second fear to the flash of first fear. It will take time, persistence and patience but if you keep accepting with the minimum of fear all the symptoms of anxiety will die of neglect.

Accepting your symptoms (for the time being) may be hard. But as someone else said here: it's a lot less harder than putting up with anxiety.

[jkl5500 in reply to Jeff1943]

A very nice job, Jeff. I should have read her earlier posts before I replied.

[tinkerbel19 in reply to Jeff1943]

Thank you for the assurance jeff. I'm hoping that everyrhing will be okay soon. I'm also trying to help my self in order to stop my anxiety.trying and trying and I'm back with my meds again. hoping that everything will turn out fine soon. taking sleeping pills also but it would normally send me to a 3-5 hour sleep.