Читать книгу Self-Help for Your Nerves: Learn to relax and enjoy life again by overcoming stress and fear - Dr. Weekes Claire - Страница 26

Now examine your racing heart. By ‘racing’ I do not mean the short attacks of palpitation you may have from time to time, but the constantly quickly beating, thumping, banging, ‘shaking’ heart that is your daily companion. You probably think it is racing, that is why I chose this expression, but if you find a watch with a second hand and take your pulse, I doubt if it will be beating at more than one hundred beats each minute. It may be beating at one hundred and twenty, but I doubt it. In fact, your heart is probably not working much harder than any other healthy heart. The difference is that you have become sensitized to its beating so that you feel each beat. And you will remain sensitized to its beating while you listen to and anxiously record each beat!

I want you to realize that it will not harm your heart in the least to beat this way. You could play tennis or baseball if you wished. In fact if you had the interest and energy to play such games, it is most likely that your heart would calm down and beat more slowly while you were playing than when you are sitting holding your pulse. I am assuming, of course, that you have had a medical examination and have been told that your trouble is ‘only nerves’.

These weeks of watching, waiting and holding your pulse have been a waste of time. You cannot harm your heart. You can do anything you wish, provided you are prepared ‘to put up temporarily with the strange feelings that come from the region of your heart. The soreness and pain are merely muscular chest-wall strain, brought on by tension. A diseased heart does not register pain where you feel it. Heart pain proper is not felt in the heart.

So, as far as your heart is concerned, it is a good heart, beating very much like any other. You are only aware of its beating and are making yourself more aware by worrying about it and paying it too much attention. Have the courage to relax and analyse this beating and understand that it, too, like the sweating hands and churning stomach, is once again the result of over-sensitization of adrenalin-releasing nerves. The nerves of your heart have become so sensitized by fear that they answer the slightest stimulus. A sudden noise may suffice to make your heart ‘rattle’; or, more puzzling still it may suddenly beat quickly for no apparent reason.

Be prepared to live with this erratic beating until your nerves become less sensitized. They will do this as you become more philosophical and accept the racing and thumping as part of your recovery programme. You have made the mistake of thinking that while your heart continued to beat quickly, you must still be ill. It may be some weeks before you cease to be conscious of the quick action, but once you accept it, you will be getting better all the time. There is no magic switch to immediately calm your heart, although sedatives can be a great help and you need not hesitate to let your doctor prescribe them.