Does anyone else have constant heartbeat awareness?

[jdurant2]

Conciliary, I feel exactly the same way. I have almost an OCD thing going on with Checking my Heart rate. During these worry periods, I almost immediately get palpitations and I can feel my heart rate in my head. When I catch myself not thinking about my heart rate, then I have anxiety because I can't feel my heart rate. This is an infinite loop of negative thoughts that I never can break out of. I have tried changing my thoughts when the symptoms hit me but unfortunately no luck.

[Vickyindelhi]

I'm very conscious of my heart beat of late, mainly because one day I was just sat down watching some TV and I had a bit of a rapid palpitation, this was a few weeks ago now, and for about a week afterwards I was constantly checking to see if my bpm was in the desired range (Normally between 70-80 for me)

Recently i've managed to get past this, but when I hit a bad day or feel a slight tightness or fluttering in my chest it makes me more wary of it again for a couple of days, but after that i'm ok again, just mind over matter for me now.

Also because theres a slight history of heart attacks on my dad's side (He's fine, just takes aspirin to keep the blood thin) it does tend to play on my mind a little, but when I distract myself the thoughts soon goto the back of my head.

Its all about breaking these cycles we get stuck in at times, i'm learning how to break them quicker slowly thank god.

Please advise how are you managing to come out of such cycles, I have same issues and losing my sleep over these

[aml0017]

This happens to me to when I am anxious, I become hyper aware of my heart beat and my breathing. For a good while, several years ago, I'd become very aware of it right when I'd lay in bed to sleep. But I couldn't sleep because I felt my heart would stop if I did. I didn't fall asleep until I was absolutely exhausted. Once I realized that through all that stress my heart was still beating and I never stopped breathing, the fear just sort of went away.

Whenever I get any physical anxiety symptoms like that I find the best thing is to distract myself. I do anything that will occupy my mind and in no time I find my mind has forgotten to be aware of the symptoms at all. They just disappear, which tells me it is just my anxiety, and the fear dissipates.

I know if you have been fixated on this a while it may not be that easy but as long as you keep thinking about your heart rate you will continue to have anxiety over it.