In 2018 I started experiencing scarry symptoms.
First, I fainted; the second time, I thought I was having a heart attack and dying.
My heart went from 60 to 200 beats per minute in the split of a second.
I was scared. I thought: If I cannot restore the rhythm by myself in less than one hour, in the emergency, they inject Adenosine, which stops your heart for few seconds, long enough to reset it to the normal rhythm until next time.
The cardiologist diagnosed me with supraventricular tachycardia.
They say medication and surgery is the only way out, but I found a better option.
Table of Contents
1. Remove the risk factors to reduce SVT episodes
Heart disease is the number one killer in America.
One person dies every 36 second due to cardiovascular disease.
The heart’s primary role is to transport oxygenated blood throughout the body, providing the right amount of oxygen to cells and organs.
Certain factors prevent this process and make us sick. These are the risk factors we must eliminate if we want to have a healthy heart.
Imagine a soldier who is at war on the front line. He has wounds everywhere, a bullet in his leg, wounds on his face and hands from explosions, foot injuries due to rugged boots, and moisture in the trenches. He is dirty, exhausted, and hungry. What’s worse is that the fight isn’t over yet, but bullets are still zooming over his head, and it’s a struggle to survive.
We are like the soldier. Every day we struggle to survive.
We eat to stay alive but unfortunately, what we choose to eat and drink most of the time makes us sick. We continue to fight for months and years until the body sends us alarm signals in the form of palpitations, ectopics, and SVT.
Our body can fight against diseases, but we risk losing the battle if we bombard it daily with toxins. The list of the risk factors is exhausting. Still, the things we need to start with are coffee, chocolate, alcohol, smoking, fast food, refined food, stimulants of any kind, white flour, energy and carbonated drinks, and everything that contains refined sugar.
I will not stop at each factor listed as I discuss more about the process itself, but it is essential to make a small observation about coffee.
I’ve heard many people say; I can drink coffee. Coffee does not affect me. It doesn’t trigger me an SVT. Even if you don’t notice that coffee produces much SVT, it is a stimulant that, together with the other factors, creates the right environment to set off SVT attacks.
If you are interested in finding out more, read this article: “17 reasons why coffee makes your SVT worse.”
2. Manage SVT through fasting
The soldier is taken to a hospital where he is safe from bullets, cold weather, and explosions. Here he will begin to be cared for. They will give him first aid, remove the bullets and bandage his wounds. Nurses will feed him with iv drips. Then his body can finally begin to heal.
When you are in a battle, you don’t have time for healing. You are always in action, and all your resources are focused on the fight, and the recovery process is a lower priority. Interestingly, although the soldier is now out of danger, safe from bullets, cold, and explosions, he still suffers. He’s hurt.
So looking at us, when we have removed the risk factors that were hurting us, our body still suffers from all the attacks so far.
We start to feel good not because we are suddenly healthy but because we have stopped the source that is damaging our health. Now we have to somehow start from scratch and fix the damage so far.
Fasting does just that.
By fasting, you give the body a chance to repair the cells, tissues, and organs. The immune system does a general cleansing and removes primarily diseased cells, and helps form new, healthy cells.
Everything I tell you is from my own experience. It feels exactly as if I pressed a restart button. After 36 hours of liquid fasting, I haven’t had an SVT episode for months.
3. Improve heart function by eating vegetables
The third step is simple: all you have to do is eat between 300-500 grams of vegetables a day. You weigh your portion every morning or preferably the day before in the evening and consume this amount for a day. This alone protects me from SVT the next day.
You can eat what vegetables you like but keep in mind that you will feel bloated if you suddenly start with 500 grams of raw vegetables a day. Cook them and gradually add raw vegetables in increasing proportions.
I can tell you that if you apply these three principles seriously, it is impossible not to see results in less than a few days. To better observe the changes, keep a journal and write down all the symptoms you have now and then the changes you will feel after just these three steps.
4. Prevent SVT with a good night sleep
To continue with the example of our soldier, let’s say he is on a hospital bed. He was given first aid and nutritious food. What is the next important and indispensable step in his recovery? A restful sleep. The fastest way to get ectopics is through lack of sleep. Go to bed before 10 pm and sleep 7-8 hours a night.
Having a good rest during the night plays a crucial role in cell regeneration.
Many recovery processes take place while sleeping. If you have a sleep disorder, look for ways to solve this problem. I had sleep issues last year, and I know how miserable this combination of SVT and insomnia can be.
When I went to bed late, I not only had a hard time falling asleep, but I had some strange symptoms. I was cold, and then I was shivering and felt a kind of internal tremor, hard to explain, like a vibration inside my body. A few hours later, after falling asleep, I woke up with a short episode of SVT with a pulse of 110. Very strange.
The next day after the sleepless night, besides the lack of energy and motivation, I had many more ectopics that guaranteed me an SVT every time.
5. Get moving to lower the heart rate
Imagine our soldier just sitting on the bed and not moving. Even if he has to learn to walk again or even if it is painful because of the still-fresh wounds, movement is part of his recovery, and there is no recovery without movement.
Regular exercise will strengthen your heart and lower your resting heart rate.
Some are afraid that exercise will cause them SVT attacks. The secret lies in how to exercise and how.
- Avoid physical activity if you had trouble sleeping the day before or worked late the night before.
- Also, if you are too exhausted from work, it is not a good idea to end the day by going to the gym.
- For a start, find those moments in the day when you are rested and have motivation and energy for exercise.
- Start with walking, 5 minutes a day for a week.
- Gradually increase the duration of the walk at a pace that is comfortable for you. Maybe 5 minutes doesn’t seem like much to you, but if you persevere in a month or two, you can get to walk 30 minutes a day without any problems.
A study conducted in 2009 on people with type 2 diabetes concluded that exercise done in the afternoon lowers blood glucose.
The type of exercise used was HIIT.
Other studies show that exercise done after a meal stimulates metabolism and even affects foods eaten later at dinner, helping to process them faster.
Exercise, if done daily, can keep you away from most of the unwanted SVT bouts.
Don’t forget
If SVT is miserable, your life shouldn’t!