Our health is an important thing to most of us. We try to look after it as much as we can by eating right and exercising, but health issues can come up. Heart palpitations can be a particularly worrying one depending on the cause. They’re not the most common problem, but they are highly worrying when they happen. A palpitation can frequently be enough to set off an anxiety attack in some. The flickering or “fluttering” pulse or sense your heart is going too fast is just overall unnerving because it is so central to our health. Fortunately, most of the time, as long as you’re not experiencing any chest pain, palpitations are at least mostly harmless. The most common causes tend to be based around stress, bad habits, or major hormonal shifts in the body. There are other causes though. It is important to know this so that you can isolate potential problems rather than worrying. Let’s go over some of the surprising causes you might experience a heart palpitation.

Out of Balance
Electrolytes in the body play key roles in helping maintain the overall health of our cells. They’re most frequently tied to the proper functioning of our muscles and nerves though. An electrolytes imbalance makes their overall functioning harder and can lead to clear issues. Heart palpitations are one of those issues. This is because of the nerve impulses that are necessary to actually keep your heart, a powerful muscle, operating like it should. Even a minor disruption to that can become distinctly noticeable and have a clear physiological effect. The keys to helping to avoid it being an issue are: water, salt, and potassium. Your body needs you to drink enough water, but not to go overboard. If your urine is clear, your body already has enough water. Avoid excessive salt and potassium in your diet as well. They can help your restore balance if it is off, but too much will cause an imbalance. Striving to maintain moderate consumption of all three is the goal.

Supplemental Issues
Taking care of our health, as probably obvious from above, involves striking a careful balance in our a diet. We don’t want any deficiencies, but excess can be just as dangerous. This problem is particularly pronounced in health circles lately because people are so frequently encouraged to take supplements and not told to report them to their doctors when asked if they are taking any drugs. The lack of regulation in supplements can be a real issue for people because there is sometimes a certain level of cross contamination in their production. This problem can lead to unexpected effects from mixed compounds that can lead to heart palpitations and other issues. You should always discuss any supplements you’re taking with your doctor and stick to trusted, name brand options where you can be sure of some form of quality control. Try to stick to only supplementing what your doctor tells you your body is lacking rather than going for a generalized approach.

Medically Relevant
We try not to think about it, but almost all of our medications have potential side effects. Most of the incidences for side effects tend to be relatively low. That’s why medication tends to be fairly widely available. However, remembering the potential for side effects is important as heart palpitations can be a side effect of some classes of drug. This tends to vary by person, but they tend to be a fairly common theme in some classes of respiratory drugs as well diet medication. It does depend on the drug though. You might want to investigate this as a potential cause if you’ve begun to experience heart palpitations after changing medications or dosage recently. Your doctor will better be able to help you determine if this is the issue and help you take the appropriate steps to continue treatment without such an unpleasant issue.

While heart palpitations are generally relatively benign, it is still something to keep track of if it is happening regularly. That’s a sign that something needs to be looked into by your doctor. Difficulties breathing and accompanying chest pain during a palpitation are cause to immediately seek medical help though. For many people, calming down will do a lot of good for soothing the average heart palpitation though as they’re frequently stress related. Just be mindful of all your symptoms and take care of yourself properly if you’re experiencing heart palpitations to ensure the best outcomes for your health.