EXTRASISTOLES AND ANXIETY: RELATIONSHIP AND CAUSES - ARTE - 2025

The relationship between extrasystoles and anxiety is usually frequent and also, in some cases it can be bidirectional. That is, anxiety can be a cause of extrasystoles and vice versa.

An extrasystole is a type of ventricular contraction. It is a heart rhythm disorder and is characterized by producing a beat ahead of the normal heart rate.

This alteration results only from a symptom, so its appearance does not have to determine the presence of cardiac pathology. However, in their presence it is necessary to carry out a thorough medical examination to rule out this possibility.

The extrasystole causes a "jump" in the heartbeat that is usually very unpleasant for the person. Experimenting with these palpitations can cause an increase in anxiety in the person and cause an anxious state.

This article explains what extrasystole is and discusses its relationship to anxiety. In addition, it reviews how anxiety can cause this symptom and how the extrasystole can increase the nervousness of the person.

Extrasystoles as a cause of anxiety

Despite the fact that the most common relationship between anxiety and extrasystoles is determined by a causal effect from the former to the latter, the roles can sometimes be reversed.

That is, in the same way that an anxious state can cause the experience of extrasystoles, modifications in the heart rate can motivate the development of an anxious state.

This fact is mainly explained by how distressing extrasystoles tend to be. Detecting changes in the heart rhythm often triggers the alarm signal due to the possibility of a significant heart condition.

Thus, it is common for people with extrasystoles to be nervous when they experience their cardiac manifestations. Likewise, the frequent experience of extrasystoles can motivate the appearance of recurrent anxiety states and increase the risk of developing an anxiety disorder.

What is extrasystoles?

Extrasystoles is a heart rhythm disorder that causes palpitations. That is, this condition causes an early beat of the person's heart rate.

The suffering of extrasystoles is a fairly common condition. Many people can detect an increase in their heartbeat at one point in their life.

In fact, suffering from extrasystoles does not imply the presence of an organic disorder, although when detected, it is essential to rule out the existence of a heart disease.

This condition originates when a stimulus is initiated outside the specific electrical conduction mechanism that generates the heartbeat.

Specifically, when the origin is located in the atria (upper chambers of the heart) it is called atrial extrasystole. When the origin occurs in the ventricles (lower chambers of the heart), it is ventricular extrasystole.

Causes of extrasystoles

Extrasystoles are premature heart contractions, that is, beats that go ahead. Many people have extrasystoles at some point in our lives, but most of them are asymptomatic and go completely unnoticed.

Anxiety is one of the factors that can cause, directly, the experimentation of extrasystoles. However, this is not the only cause of the heart rhythm disorder. In fact, extrasystoles can be caused by multiple factors of different kinds.

In the first place, it must be taken into account that extrasystoles can be cardiopathic manifestations, being the most dangerous condition of the affection and requires treatment and exhaustive control.

However, extrasystoles can also occur in healthy hearts, a fact that is not too uncommon.

In these cases, the main causes of this condition are the consumption of drugs of different kinds such as alcohol, cocaine, tobacco or coffee, states of anxiety, cardiac somatization or the performance of intense sports.

Anxiety as a cause of extrasystoles

Anxiety is one of the factors that can cause extrasystoles. In fact, the relationship between both disorders is usually quite frequent.

In this sense, it must be taken into account that anxiety, despite being a psychological disorder, causes both cognitive symptoms (referring to thought) and physical and behavioral manifestations.

In the case of physical manifestations, one of the most common are palpitations, although other symptoms such as muscle tension, increased respiratory rate, sweating or dry mouth may also be experienced.

Palpitations caused by anxiety are caused by an increase in the person's heart rate. In fact, it is very common for the heart rate to jump in times of high anxiety.

This fact is mainly due to the increased activity of the autonomic nervous system that motivates anxious states.

This means that anxiety does not only affect the regions of the brain that are responsible for processing conscious activities, but also affects the structures that perform automatic activities.

By affecting these brain regions, a large number of physical functions can be altered and, in this way, cause modifications in the body's physical activity, including the experimentation of extrasystoles.

The anxiety-extrasystole loop

This loop originates only when both causal conditions are met. That is, when the extrasystoles are caused by anxiety, and when the experience of these alterations in the heart rhythm generates anxious states.

In these cases, the experimentation of extrasystoles can lead to increased anxiety of the person, a fact that translates into an increase in cardiac symptoms, thus generating a loop from which it is difficult to get out. This fact originates mainly due to the functioning of anxious states.

These usually start in thinking, through the generation of cognitions with nervous content. Subsequently, the anxious thought originates followed by physical manifestations.

These physical manifestations (among which extrasystoles can be found) are usually captured by the brain, which interprets them as an alarm signal. Before this alarm signal, the psychological state responds with an increase in nervousness, a fact that motivates an even greater increase in physical symptoms.

References

1. CIBA – GEIGY. Stress: a coronary risk factor. CIBA-GEIGY documents.
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3. Nutt D, Argyropoulos S, Forshall S. Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Diagnosis, treatment and its relation ship to other anxiety disorders. Spain. 1998.
4. Gaita F, Giusetto C, Di Donna P, Richiardi E, Libero L, Brusin MC, et al. Long term follow-up of right ventricular monomorphic extrasystoles. J Am Coll Cardiol 2001; 38: 364-70.