Heart seems to race when I wake up from napping/sleeping

For the past year and a half or so I've had a few moments where I'll either way up from sleeping or wake up from laying down and my heart will be racing. I'm usually in a bit of a sweat but everything else is normal.

Just a second ago I laid down on my couch for a while...didn't fully fall asleep but started to. When I sat up after about 20 minutes my pulse had quickened. I definitely was not asleep long enough or heavily enough to be dreaming so it kinda rules out the bad dreams idea. Pulse is back to normal now and usually returns to normal fairly quickly after waking.

I had an EKG a year ago and just at the physical I had done last week and both were normal, so I don't think it's anything serious. I used to think it was just lingering anxiety. I mentioned it to my nurse and she didn't seem too concerned...but I forgot to ask my doctor about it.

Does this happen to anyone else? It's a bit unnerving.

Might be anxiety attacks.

It's no where near overwhelming enough to be an anxiety or panic attack, fortunately.

there probably anxiety attacks....i sleep normal when i take my medicine (for ocd)....when i dont take them sometimes i wake up from my sleep with a fast heart rate and some mini anxiety attakcs that go away after im up for like five minutes...are you worried about anything or do you have a lot of stress?

The elevated thyroid hormones could DEFINITELY cause this. When I'm in a hyper phase, I run into tachycardia a LOT!

I have always had anxiety issues and this semester has been particularly stressful.




I will mention it to my doctor when I schedule the follow up appointment.

Others may not know, but I just got blood test results back and my thyroid levels were elevated. That's where Wingsy got that idea from

I was also thinking maybe it's just something as simple as the way I sleep. I have a problem with sleeping my arms to the point where I'll wake up and it'll be completely asleep. Perhaps if I cut off bloodflow it makes my heart work harder to circulate blood? I dunno. Just an idea

Let's call in Dr. House!

sorry to hear that hope you get better

I had that for years and still get it often.

Went to a cardiologist and he put a 'heart diary' on me to monitor my heart rate and was told that when I felt it going fast 'which I could' every time, I had to press on a button and it automatically started monitoring my heart rate at the hospital for the cardiologist's worked for them to look at everything that was happening as is was going fast.

He also ran a battery of heart tests and my diagnosis was and is 'Sinus Tachycardia' brought on by stress and sometimes on it's own.

He told me it was nothing to worry about but if it kept it up when I was older, then they would decide whether they would zap it out.

It's in my left ventricular chamber, it starts up and takes over the natural beat of my heart.

I also had them often with severe panic attacks/anxiety attacks.

Get it checked out thoroughly and once you know the problem or if there is one, the Specialists can take proper action to prevent this.

Good Luck!