How much can anxiety affect heart rate?

Anxiety is an emotion that sets in when one is about to go into a situation that makes one fearful. The anxiety episodes tend to be short and temporary, with a few severe symptoms that can have long-term health effects. Many typical signs of anxiety include tension, nervousness, and sweating. The other common symptom one can experience is increased breathing pattern, also called heart palpitations.

 

These palpitations make one feel like the breathing system is racing or fluttering. Since the feelings of fear are not only isolated to the mind, they also activate the body’s autonomic nervous system, which is also called the fight or flight response. The autonomic nervous system regulates the body’s functions, such as the heart.

People experiencing pressure will have an elevated rate at rest. In other words, this is called tachycardia, which means that the bpm goes above normal. The average heart bpm ranges between 60 to 100bpm, but this can raise it to above 100bpm.

 

Can anxiety make your heart rate stay high?

It is not strange for your heart to start beating fast or pounding when you are nervous. However, these interruptions can make you more stressed. The good news is that anxiety-induced heart palpitations are not of concern since there are ways to control them.

As mentioned earlier, palpitations happen when the beats per minute are abnormally faster or more than average. The feeling is confined to the chest but can go to other parts, such as the throat and the neck. The palpitations caused by this kind of fear are harmless as they don’t stay long. Usually, when people feel anxious, they try as much as possible to avoid a stressful situation, and in a short period, they calm down. This means that the bpm will not stay high for long.

 

Here are some ways to calm down and bring down the rate.

1. Meditation

After a small student-led study at the Michigan technological university, the findings showed that after an hour of the meditation session, those participating had lower bpm.

2. Yoga and regular exercise

Yoga is also found to have mind-relaxing effects. This is because the person has to concentrate on their mind when doing yoga. This will slow down the body’s activities and the bpm after some time. Exercising regularly will also help the body calm and lower the breathing rate.

3. Cope with stress

As mentioned earlier, stress is a precursor of pressure, and finding the best ways to deal with it will eliminate the impacts of anxiety. The effects of stress can directly affect the body and cause a toll on one’s health. When the body is stressed, it produces a hormone called adrenaline that temporarily causes the bpm to go high. This links stress to anxiety; therefore, coping with stress ensures that the breathing rate remains normal.

4. Take time to breath

Deep breathing is a relaxation method that can help reduce the fear and lower the bpm. Deep breathing help in stimulating the vagus nerve that causes activity in the nervous system and helps one reduce the chemicals that cause the fight and flight response. This, in turn, reduces the breathing rate and blood pressure caused by anxiety. To practice deep breathing, find a nice quite place where you can sit down and close your eyes, inhale through the nose slowly, and exhale slowly through the mouth. Keep doing this for some time, and you will see the results.

 

Can anxiety cause a heart rate of 130?

Anxiety and pulse are directly tied to one another. Anything that causes the release of adrenaline, including anxiety, can raise the bpm. Individuals suffering from fear experience elevated bpm at rest, known as tachycardia, meaning that the bpm is above 100 beats in a minute.

An average resting bpm ranges between 60 and 100 beats per minute. This, therefore, means that in a case where the rate goes above 100 bpm, it might be caused by anxiety.

According to health studies, there is no evidence of the breathing rising to 130 bpm, but anything above 100 bpm will mean that anxiety might have caused it.

Anxiety is commonly used interchangeably with panic attack, but they are different. The abnormal rate, called tachycardia, results in a panic attack.

The panic attack triggers a raised breathing pattern that may go up to 200 bpm and even faster. The faster beating makes you lightheaded and short of breath. Usually, if this happens as a result of emotional stress will only last for a few minutes and is not harmful.

 

What is a normal heart rate when stressed?

Anxiety often travels in the company of stress and depression. This means that stress affects the body and the breathing system similarly to pressure.

Stress usually serves as a precursor to anxiety and depression. A stressful situation sets off a series of events. First, the body releases adrenaline, a hormone that temporarily causes one to breathe fast and the breathing to rise. The reactions prepare the body to deal with the fight or flight response situation.

The target heart rate is the minimum heart rate in a given amount of time to get the energy needed by the breathing system for a good workout.

To get the target bpm to maximize the heart exercise, the first thing to do is to determine the maximum beat per minute. This is, therefore, the average bpm.

 

However, once the person is stressed, the maximum breathing pattern is calculated by taking the maximum number, which is 220 minus the age. The target heart rate depends on the age when going for a normal rate stress test. The predicted normal heart rate is 220 minus the age of the person. For instance, if the person is 50 years old, their normal heart rate when stressed is 220 minus 50.

 

Summary – How much can anxiety affect heart rate?

Anxiety is associated with increased bpm, a condition called tachycardia. Stress kicks in when you are in a stressful situation. When a person is nervous or fearful, the beats per minute in the body increase as a natural response to fear. This is a coping mechanism that helps the body be aware of stressful situations.

Over time, this puts much stress on the internal breathing system, increasing the risk of disease. Anxiety triggers a response in the autonomic nervous system that suspends body activities such as digestion, and the rate increases. The breathing goes to above 100 beats per minute.

 

References

1. Schubert, C., et al. “Effects of stress on heart rate complexity—a comparison between short-term and chronic stress.” Biological psychology 80.3 (2009): 325-332.

2. Watkins, Lana L., et al. “Anxiety and vagal control of heart rate.” Psychosomatic medicine 60.4 (1998): 498-502.

3. Lagos, Leah, et al. “Heart rate variability biofeedback as a strategy for dealing with competitive anxiety: A case study.” Biofeedback 36.3 (2008): 109.