Mine alwaays started with the heart speeding up, tunnel vision, arrythmia, and then blackout. I wore a Holter monitor for 24 hours and it recorded my heart rate going up to as high as 177bpm 52 times. They put me on medical leave for a couple of months to reduce the stress and fatigue and I wasn’t allowed to drive. I had stress from many directions. I was working around 84 hours a week on rotating shifts, was in management, and my husband couldn’t remember where I was. He called me about every two hours asking where I was and when I would be home. I gave up and retired at 58. LOL
The breath holding compresses the heart to slow it down and naturally relaxes you.
The cardio exercises kept the stress related adrenaline burned off.
If I feel a spell coming on and start the breathing, breath holding exercise, it never goes to the tunnel vision/arrhythmia stage.
The doctors said there was nothing wrong with my heart but stress can cause a heart attack in a healthy heart and/or a stroke.
gisd O
I notice from visiting folks in the hospital, ER, etc that when they get relaxed their breathing rate drops and I see their SPO2 monitor dropping. The monitors are typically set to beep at SPO@ 92%. So I yell at ‘em to breathe deeper. As few as four/five deep breathes gets their number back up to 95/96/97. Sometimes the high heart rate is the issue but other stuff happens also. Docs most frequently recommend the big inhale, hold, slow exhale and if that works, fine. What I also notice is that they don’t get around to mentioning that it’s best to do the breathing thru the nose as opposed to mouth-breathing. At the same time I notice they miss the other method which is deep inhale thru the nose, then rapid exhale thru the nose. There is benefit to cycling the lungs more often and the forceful exhale helps blow stuff out of the way that doesn’t belong there. Mouth breathing wastes oxy and causes burps.
A lot of years of heavy physical activity (I ran nearly 30,000 miles) convince me that rapid deep breathing gets one back to normal more quickly. And three quick, deep breathes usually gets the SPO2 back where it belongs. Try both methods and go with what works.