How to keep heart rate down when nervous

Updated: 01/27/2022

If your heart is racing as you’re sitting reading this article, it’s possible your body is trying to tell you something. A high resting heart rate, or a heart rate of more than 100 beats per minute, means your heart is working extra hard to pump blood through your body. And, that extra effort could result in a wide range of negative effects on your overall health, including feelings of dizziness and fatigue – and most seriously – blood clots, heart failure and, in rare cases, sudden death.

Normal resting heart rate is anywhere between 60 and 100 beats per minute, and it’s simple to check how fast yours is beating. While idle, hold your pointer and middle finger between your bone and tendon on the thumb side on your wrist until you feel your pulse, and count the number of beats for a minute – that is your resting heart rate.

Certain aspects of someone’s resting heart rate are directly connected to uncontrollable factors, such as age and genetics, however there are certain actions that be taken to help decrease heart rate and improve overall wellbeing for those whose resting heart rate is above normal.

Here are six proven ways to lower your resting heart rate:

1. Stay Out of the Heat:

The warmer the temperature, the faster your heart beats. This is because your heart is working quickly to pump blood to the surface of your skin, produce sweat and cool off the body. To ensure your heart isn’t beating on overdrive, stay in cool, comfortable places when possible and remember to stay well hydrated.

2. Exercise Frequently: 

Exercise is great for your health for many reasons – and securing a normal resting heart rate is one of them. While it might seem counterintuitive since your heart rate increases while you’re exercising, what you’re actually doing every time you’re working out is training your heart to be stronger and more efficient at pumping blood. Then, when you’re in rest mode, your heart is more easily able to maintain a normal heart rate.

3. Add More Fish to Your Diet: 

Similarly to exercising, maintaining a healthy diet is beneficial to each of us for many reasons. For one, incorporating more fish has been associated with lower resting heart rates, according to a study from the American Heart Association. Don’t enjoy eating fish? Talk a doctor about taking fish oil supplements, which may have positive effects on heart rate as well.

4. Lessen the Stress: 

The higher our stress level, the higher our heart rates. For many people, stress can feel inevitable. Perhaps you’re trying to balance work and home life, but can never seem to find enough time to get it all accomplished. A quick and simple way to begin to de-stress is to designate a block of time each day to disconnect from your cell phone and other electronic devices. This frees up time to be productive and gives you an opportunity to declutter your mind and reprioritize. Another simple de-stressing tip is to practice meditation to relax the mind.

5. Be Mindful of Your Breathing: 

On the topic of medication, another quick and easy way to lower your heart rate is to practice mindful breathing exercises. Inhale slowly for five seconds and then exhale slowly for 15 seconds. Try dedicating five minutes to this each day.

6. Nix the Cigarettes: 

It might come as no surprise that smoking cigarettes has countless negative effects on a person’s health. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, this includes an increased risk for coronary heart disease, stroke and lung and other cancers. Additionally, tobacco products have been shown to increase resting heart rates. When your body consumes nicotine, your veins and arteries constrict, and your heart has to then put in that extra work to pump blood. If you’re a smoker, the good news is quitting can decrease your resting heart rate within just 24 hours – so the sooner you can nix the cigarettes – the sooner you’ll begin to see results.

Next Steps & Resources:

• Meet our clinical contributor: Sarah Timmapuri, M.D.
• To make an appointment with Dr. Timmapuri or a doctor near you, call 800-822-8905 or visit our website.

The material provided through HealthU is intended to be used as general information only and should not replace the advice of your physician. Always consult your physician for individual care.

You wake as the sun rises in the morning; you feel the warmth of the animal skin covering your body as you lay on the mud floor of the hut you call home. Alongside you and next door, you hear other tribe members rousing, too. The birds sing in the trees that surround you. You get up and prepare yourself to hunt for food. There is nowhere to work here, your life’s purpose is to survive.

Finding food is intensely challenging and you are the source of food for your animal cohabitants. Meat is rare and it might take you and your hunting party days to arrive home with something to feed the tribe. Your body must work efficiently to keep you safe from harm. Danger lurks everywhere but your body is powerful. When your brain recognises an imminent threat, it will activate your fight or flight response, so you can run or fight. This innate life saving skill keeps you alive on your dangerous missions.

And then you come back to real life. Real life in your western society where there is very little threat to your life. Food comes from the supermarket down the road and your next-door neighbour probably isn’t going to eat you.

Frustratingly though, your brain does not differentiate between a threat to your life and a threat to your ego. It cannot tell the difference between real and imagery. It holds onto previous experiences and uses them to determine how to behave in the future. So, when you have a social engagement that feels a bit scary, or a presentation to give at work your brain will react as it would when trapped by a killer animal.

Why does anxiety cause heart palpitations?

As you now know, anxiety is the body entering the fight or flight response. This involves activation of the autonomic nervous system and an increase in your heart rate. It makes a lot of sense; your body needs to pump the blood to all the muscles required to fight or flee the threatening situation.

Once the threat passes, you win the fight, or escape, your body should return to the default state and your heart rate should slow. However, if the threat is not an actual threat to your life, you do not run away or fight – but if the perceived threat is persistent, you will remain in the anxious (fight or flight) state.

How to stop heart palpitations due to anxiety

You can use hypnotherapy or other forms of talking therapy to manage anxiety. However, in the moment, you want to know how to stop your heart from doing what it is doing. It is, therefore, important to know how to calm a racing heart from anxiety, when you have not yet found the time to deal with the anxiety overall.

The best trick to slow down your heart rate is to make your out-breath longer than your in-breath. When you inhale you stimulate your sympathetic nervous system which increases your heart rate. When you exhale you stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system which decreases your heart rate. By exhaling for longer than your inhale you slow your heart rate. Try counting from one to seven as you inhale and one to eleven as you exhale. 

How to slow down heart rate anxiety

Anxiety often causes anxiety. For example, the faint feeling of anxiety can frighten you so much that your anxiety grows, and everything feels much stronger.

Heart rate anxiety happens when your slightly faster heartbeat makes you fear there is something terribly wrong. Your brain takes this belief on and strengthens the response. The fast heart rate gets stronger, and you find yourself in a vicious circle. When you make the active decision to use one of the below techniques to slow down your heart rate you will also lower heart rate anxiety.

How do I know if I have heart problems or anxiety?

There is no harm in a quick trip to the doctor to make sure your heart is in good working order. Anxiety is more common than you might think and certainly more likely than heart problems, but your GP will happily check your heart for you to make sure there is nothing wrong. 

If your heart rate is quickened due to anxiety, you can use the following tricks to slow down your heart rate and feel more comfortable.

1. Breathing – as per the previous example when you breathe, make your exhale longer than your inhale to slow your heart rate. 

2. Abdominal breathing – place one hand on your belly button and another on your chest. Breathe down into the belly button space so this hand rises rather than the one on your chest. Abdominal breathing is the most efficient way to breathe. ‘Cheating’ by breathing into your chest becomes the normal way. This is harder when you are in an anxious state because your chest muscles will tighten to help you run or fight. The tightness further fuels the fear and increases the anxious feelings. Make abdominal breathing your normal way to breathe.

3. Mindfulness – some hypnotherapy sessions with a therapist knowledgeable about mindfulness will help you learn how to live mindfully. This will enable you to take control of your thoughts, so you are less likely to drift into the fight or flight response. 

4. Meditation – meditation will take your body out of the anxious state and move you into the default calm state. Your heart rate will slow as a result. This is something you should do daily. If time is a restriction a five-minute meditation is preferable to nothing. 

5. Exercise – exercise is beneficial for all of you, mind, body, and spirit. There is no requirement to exercise intensely, a 30-minute walk each day is good enough.