How to get rid of your palpitations naturally : exercise

foreign Jacob I'm a cardiologist in York hospital and um today I thought I'd do a quick video on uh the subject of how to get rid of your palpitations naturally and as you may know I have already done three previous videos on the subject of what you eat what you drink sleeping and now I wanted to concentrate on exercise now before we go on I'm very keen to stress the fact that this video is for those patients in whom your palpitations have been checked out and you have not been found to have a significant heart problem by that I mean that someone has defined your heart rhythm when you have palpitations um usually that is done by a 24-hour ECG or an ECG um so your GP will your GP or your cardiologist will typically say oh you're just getting extra beats it's nothing to be worried about forget about it but the problem is even though they've said that you don't necessarily feel reassured you still are aware of this um sensation of skip beats or fluttering and one of the commonest questions I get is okay my GP has told me that they're nothing to be worried about but I'm really worried about exercising because I'm worried that I may be doing damage to my heart I may be worried that I'm worried that I might have a heart attack um and so my video today is for those people in whom the GP or the doctor said there's nothing to worry about your heart rhythm is okay or you're just getting simple extra beats or ectopics or PVCs um if you haven't had this done then the best thing first is to go and get checked out which is you go to your doctor and ask him to give you a monitor that you can strap onto your chest and you press a button when you get the palpitations and then they can look at the Monitor and see what the heart rhythm is like at that time okay now let's say you've been checked out and your GPU said nothing to be worried about extra beats uh the patient is still left with the palpitations and one of the commonest problems they have is how do they get rid of these palpitations and there are lots of things that um that you can do to reduce the palpitations including watching what you eat including watching what you drink and getting more sleep but exercise is really underrated and a really really effective measure in trying to get back to good health and getting rid of the palpitations okay the first thing to say is that by um when when um we as doctors see that a person's ectopic beats or their PVCs or Pacs get less frequent to an exercise then we consider that a very benign sign okay so in general people whose ectopics get less frequent with exercise generally do very very well okay and therefore exercise is actually very good because it suppresses the ectopics if you find that you're exercising and your topics get more frequent then it's certainly worth getting checked out again are you going to your GP and saying look my topics are getting more frequent in exercise in which case what should happen is that your GP should refer you for a supervised exercise test where they can um see exactly what happens when you start exercising but otherwise you would normally find that your ectopics get less frequent when you exercise and a lot of people say to me well in the middle of the night what do I do I'm getting these ectopics I can't rest and I say well just you know do a little jog or do something to get your heart rate up by exercising and that will suppress your ectopics and it'll get rid of them for you even if it's in the middle of the night and why is exercise so good and by exercise I mean uh moderate exercise I don't mean you know suddenly going and pumping a thousand kilograms over your head what I mean is gentle cardiovascular exercise a jog a walk going on the treadmill for you know half an hour something like that and it usually has to be something you want to do on a regular basis rather than just a one-off so it doesn't help anyone just to go and do a run for 30 minutes and then not do one again for three months uh it's much better to do a run for 10 minutes but then keep that going every day or keep that going three times a week or something like that um why is exercise so good well the first thing the first and foremost thing is exercise has a beautiful amazing anti-inflammatory effect on the body we as human beings are more inflamed now um than we have ever been since the beginning of man and the reason for that is that we lead such a hectic Lifestyle the Western lifestyle uh we rarely get an easy as much sleep as we ought to we rarely eat anything which is natural anymore we are always stressed and so our bodies are hugely inflamed and I'm sure that that is the reason why we see so many uh new illnesses nowadays compared to say a hundred years ago um and and there has been a lot of research looking at the anti-inflammatory effects of exercise and it has been proven without doubt that moderate a regular exercise as it has a beautiful anti-inflammatory effect on the on the on the body and you know that for yourself because if you have a cold or if you're just generally feeling a little bit under the weather you go for a run you come back and you'll have shaken off your cold so and people have measured levels of um chemicals such as like such as tumor necrosis Factor Alpha into lucans and they've all found these to get more suppressed as a person exercises so exercise is very good for and for reducing inflammation levels and as your inflammation levels go down the irritability of the heart does get less the second thing to say is that exercise is a huge stress Buster okay remember we have much higher levels of stress hormones now because of our lifestyle compared to ever before the problem with the stress hormones is as the stress hormones go up they do interfere with our normal electrolyte balance so they will stress hormones will tend to push potassium and magnesium levels into our cells um and that can then cause a relative magnesium deficiency and that can lead to more ectopics and um exercise is very good because it reduces stress hormone levels and therefore maintains more of an electrolyte equilibrium the third thing about exercise that it's it's extremely good for weight loss and again weight loss does contribute to um getting rid of some of these ectopic beats because the more weight you carry the more pressure the heart is under to try and Supply the body and because the heart is having to work harder that back pressure can translate into chambers of the heart getting enlarged and thickening and that can lead to irritability of the heart so it's also another good idea that by that by getting more exercise you're losing weight naturally and by losing weight you will find that your heart becomes less irritable because it's under less pressure again it's good for blood pressure um in the same way and that's why you know one of the most important and overlooked ways of getting your blood pressure down is by getting regular exercise unfortunately these things are generally ignored these days because you go to doctor that rarely have any time to speak to you they give you some medication and get you out of the door but really lifestyle modification is a huge huge thing and uh one of the one of the most natural ways of feeling better um so in summary what I'd like to say is generally you should not be worried about exercising if you find that your palpitations are more frequent in exercising go and see a doctor and get a stress test uh if on the other hand you find that your palpitations are less frequent in exercising then there's no reason why you shouldn't continue to exercise and you will find that as time progresses your palpitations will get less and less frequent um and of course it also helps because you will lose weight it it's good for reducing your stress levels and it's a hugely effective anti-inflammatory so I hope this was useful to you um if you have any questions please don't hesitate to get in touch with me I'm now also on Twitter and you can contact me on Twitter um and otherwise you can always visit my website or you can get in touch with my secretary um um if you wanted to speak to me um and that's about it really um if you have any questions please don't hesitate just uh just drop me a line or leave a comment and I do try and answer um all the comments all the questions I get although sometimes I'm quite busy and it does take a bit of time but I'm really grateful to you for taking the time to listen to me and I wish you a good night

Channel: York Cardiology

Views: 124,465

Keywords: #hangoutsonair, Hangouts On Air, #hoa, Palpitation (Symptom), exercise

Id: I-rd7g82od8

Length: 11min 1sec (661 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 05 2015