Heartbeat Eras

I usually don’t post like this but I believe it’s important to be transparent about mental health despite how uncomfortable it makes me feel to post this to the world. Right now I want to hide but anyone who’s spoken to me knows I’m an advocate for being honest and open about your feelings during these times without judgement. Perhaps I should do the same. 😅

I haven’t been posting recently and it’s not because I don’t want to. I was happiest when I was doing it but as the weeks and months went on I became increasingly burnt out. My brain told me I wanted to record but my body just wouldn’t cooperate. I’d work then crash on weekends. Getting out of bed was a struggle and replying to messages became almost impossible. I’d lie in bed with unread messages and it felt like it was getting harder to breathe just thinking about replying and what if they responded and I needed to reply again. Sometimes I’d reply a week later apologising that I couldn’t do more and it felt terrible.

About a week or two ago I began calling this feeling burnout. My medication masks many things making it difficult to pinpoint my true emotions. I haven’t experienced genuine sadness in years but some is now creeping through and dealing with it is far from enjoyable.

So why am i publicly putting this out there? While I don’t know my way forward, I think it’s important to normalise talking about these things. I also wanted to explain why I may not be posting (tbf my content isn’t really crave worthy so no one’s gonna be trying to get their next Anna hit) or why I may not reply to messages. Just know I see them but that extra step can sometimes feel like needing to climb a mountain instead of walk to the letterbox.

Moments like these can feel incredibly isolating. We crave connection but also feel shame about our feelings and might subconsciously self sabotage (I know I do). Today I pushed someone away because my brain was screaming that I don’t deserve someone to care about me. I never want anyone to experience the way my mind sometimes makes me feel. If you’re scared to talk to your person, tell them you just need them to walk beside you for a bit. They probably won’t judge you and want to support you, otherwise there are so many people in this community that I call friends that more than willing and understanding that do this with me.

And to wrap this up - I want to make some things clear (so there’s none of this reporting me stuff)

I am ok

I am safe

I am just exhausted and low

So please people, take care of your mental health. Tell someone when you’re low. Be there for your friends. Don’t be afraid to share from your heart. The heart feels are the most painful but they are the most important.

You are important and you are so worth it.

So what did I do? I put my face in ice cold water. Spoilers - not nearly as pleasant as it sounds. But I do love nerding out to physiological responses to the heart. How the body instinctively reacts to different environments to protect itself. Delving into the science then testing it out on my little girl.

With the Mammalian diving reflex, it’s always intrigued me with how quickly and efficiently the body knows it needs to conserve energy and oxygen. As the face touches the water and breathing ceases, the vagus nerve has already jumped in to start working, switching the body into power saving mode. Within seconds the SA node has received the memo and slows the heart rate as oxygen rich blood is prioritised to brain and heart.

Now trying that in real life seems easy... in practice it's a lot less fun. I can hold my breath for a reasonably long time. One of my recordings has about 3 mins. As soon as my face hit the water my brain was screaming for air. I could hear my heart beating in my ears, slowing down drastically. Dropping from 76 to 41 in 20 sec. It felt like over a min and the space between beats seemed endless. She felt like she was skipping in my chest. Pulling my face from the water she slowly regained her beat. When I felt she had recovered we tried again. I knew it wouldn't be as drastic. Turns out your body catches on to these tricks pretty quickly, but she sure did slow down again. With my face burning, we knew it was time to rest. In the hour following I could feel her skipping every so often. I don't think she likes the cold.

Apologies for the background noise. I struggled with all the equipment to avoid knocking the steth or the wires and editing the beats to how I normally like them to sound.

Steth - Cardio IV

So I haven’t been posting as much. I find this interest ebbs and flows. Sometimes it’s really intense, and other times it takes so much effort just to want to share. Truth be told, it’s been the latter for me for quite a few months now. Things happened, feels were felt (sometimes I couldn’t even identify them) and the idea of recording and posting her beats became mentally draining. I struggled. There are many recordings that never made it through editing and writing to posting. The funny thing is, I was happiest when I was doing this, but I couldn’t break that barrier.

Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t jump into sharing lightly. For me, sharing and listening to a heartbeat live is not trivial. The heart carries a side of you that’s deep and beautiful, and I’m not there for a transactional event. I want to know you as someone I call a friend, and by hearing each other’s heart, getting to know you better. I want to understand what makes you tick, literally, and connect in a way that words aren’t needed. That’s what sharing is to me, and why I hold it so sacred.

Cue this morning: a normal rainy Sunday, but the clouds couldn’t dampen today. One of my newer friends here shared their heart with me for the first time. I say “newer” however, by the time I heard their heartbeat, I’d known them for months or even years. There’s something magical about the first time hearing them react to your comments, your brain trying to familiarise itself with the rhythm and sounds. I always feel honored to be part of that, trusted with something so special and intimate.

I didn’t share in this session, but afterward, I pulled out my steth and listened to Anna. I haven’t done this in a while, not in this way. Not listening to see if she’s pounding as much as she feels like she is, but just making space for her to feel all those feelings. This moment made me remember what I loved, how I felt before, and how much I desire that connection in a safe space in real time. Posting her here was empowering when I couldn’t express her in my real world. I don’t think it’s fully reversed the last few months, but I feel the journey has started back toward what I had.

So this is a recording of her after the share. At this point, my meds were kicking in, yet she was so calm in the low 60s. You may notice a few spikes in rate, those are thanks to the comments of my newish friend that instigated them. When I listened to her, she just felt peaceful, and so did the rest of me.

If you want to listen to a very calm, unexciting recording, here’s Anna just being content. The title of this recording suits it perfectly. Anna was named after the princess in Frozen, and this truly feels like her after a period of isolation. Let’s just hope there’s no Eternal Winter to weather next, right?

Steth - Cardio IV

My little heart (Anna) and I wanted to wish all the Cardio-fellows, Sweethearts and all in between a Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays. This community is one I hold close to my heart, and every Christmas I feel the appreciation for the people I have met through this niche interest. I hope you all have / had a wonderful day filled with love, food... and more food.

Now it wouldn't be a post without my heart not wanting to calm down. I've recently swapped back from methylphenidate to amphetamines and boy was Anna not happy about this. Recently, you would have noticed that she had the ability to hang out in the 50's, while being stethed by someone else for the first time. Well those days seem to be over.

While giving her some love and attention tonight, she hovered from 85 - 95 (coz who doesn't love some borderline tachycardia on Christmas?). To be fair, she did have to tolerate the meds plus a lot of food. In her defence, she did remain steady, albeit a bit poundy.

Do you think she had a Merry Christmas?

Steth - Cardio IV

Anyone that knows my heart well knows that she likes to race. In the 80's or 90's after a long day (last night even giving me high heart rate notifications 5 times) So how do you think she was beating during my first steth meet? Pounding? Breaking records of tachycardia? Well apparently not.. Apparently her reaction was to revert to extreme calmness. I'm not talking 70's... I'm talking 50's... In the middle of the day... after coffee and stimulants and foreign a steth placed firmly to my chest. I kept thinking it was lie when I was being told "She's beating so slowly"... It couldn't be true... mine wasn't the slow heart.

Here we have some monitoring of her in the moment. Wired up to the 12 lead, my Cardio IV resting on my chest recording while another steth explores and listens nearby.

Well, what you do think? Do you think he broke her?

Steth - Cardio IV

@no-i-mean-uh-yes do you? 🤭

If anyone ever asked me what I crave most, heart-wise, it’s this.. curling up against the chest of someone I trust and listening to their heartbeat. There’s something about hearing and feeling it under my ear that makes everything in me settle. The way a steady rhythm can calm my reactive one… how the anxiety softens, and beat by beat, things slowly drift back into place.

The other night, after a busy day, curled up with a 30 min recording I decided to do just that. With the steth to my chest I snuggled up, closed my eyes and just relaxed into the metronome of one of my fav heartbeats in the world. I can honestly say it was so hard to not just fall asleep, and I almost did....

Now I’m curious, did their heart do its job? Did mine take note and relax… or did she decide she didn’t care and still wanted to whinge about the day?

Steth - Cardio IV

Well you heard her hitting 189 and recovering immediately, but what is she like after that? I love using the phrase "I'll get over it, I just need to be dramatic first". That's exactly what I feel she wants to do after I've pushed her as far as she will go. Pounding and racing until she's like - cool I'm over it now - and calms down a bit. I love the little moments where she will beat slow for a couple of beats, then speed back up... like she's not ready to let go just yet.

So sit back with me and a tv show, head or steth to my chest, and wait while she works out what calm is again.. if that ever is a thing that she can be.

Steth - Cardio IV

Oh don't you dare look back, just keep your steth on me.

You think I'm holding back, I said "Shut up and run with me"....

I've been keeping her low and slow for a while, but today I just wanted to see how far I could push her. In this session I surprised myself by still being able to run 2km. I wanted her high and to stay there... then I ramped up the incline and sprinted maxed out until I couldn't anymore.

Listen to her recovery from the peak of 189 to the 5 min recovery pace. You can hear me struggling to catch and control my breath. Half way through you can clearly hear some deep breathing. Usually at this time I've recovered enough but with my heartbeat playing in my ears I start to get overwhelmed, but the purist in me refuses to do a really short recording. There were also a lot of cars out that decided to rudely interrupt the recording. Every time I heard one I could feel the adrenaline spike, so this may have impacted her recovery.

So, anyone keen to come on a run with me? Think you can beat her recovery? Would you be keen to hear the 30 + mins after this and how she responded from there?

Steth - Cardio IV

We haven't done a work recording in a while.. taken on an oddly not busy day. We did have some false starts as some people decided to rudely call me prior to starting the recording but managed to get good gap in there see how my little girl reacts to emails and problem solving.

Turns out my keyboard makes a lot of noise... well that's what I like about this one... but apologies.. my audio editing skills are not nearly good enough to remove them.

So how do you think she handled it? Was she working hard or phoning it in today?

Steth - Cardio IV

Most of you know that I take stimulant medication for my adhd, which is a lot of fun when my little girl likes to jump from resting into the 160's immediately when we go for a run. After looking into this I decided to give low heart rate training a bit of a try for the next few months and see if we can get her a bit stronger at lower rates so she can adapt better to bigger pushes.

The idea behind low HR training is that you stay in the aerobic zone for an extended period of time. Doing this puts less stress on her so she can get stronger and more efficient without freaking out. She learns to adapt and recover quicker and as time goes on, she should be able to handle more stress with less of a reaction....or so they say.

So my zone falls into the 126 - 138 range. I saw this and immediately thought "F*** no... that's not possible". With the medication working against me, this sure was going feel wayyyy too easy. Running was out of the option so walking but using inclines to get to the sweet spot was the only option I had.

So I started with a warm up, keeping her below 126 and slowly working up to the range (this was sooooo hard as she just wanted to fly) then building her up but also trying to reign her in. Trying to get in that sweet spot of 133 - 138 and stay there for 30min. There were a lot of adjustments and needed to throw in some very controlled breathing at moments to bring her back down in the range.

I have to say that this workout mentally is really hard. Time just dragged. Because my heart is so reactive at the moment, I need to constantly be watching her as I found when I tried to zone out to music she would take off, and I bet it was because I wasn't focusing on my breathing as intently, but my understanding is that with consistency she will stabilize and won't have to micromanage her quite as much.

So how do you think she went?

Did she stay in her lane?

Steth - Cardio IV

Well I teased this one yesterday. Pulled out the old 12 lead ECG to test my heart's reactions to some adversity. She handled the push within her stride so I thought I would escalate and do some vacuums to really test her ability.

I've heard her stumble with these many times but I always love to be able to see the electricity running through her has she tries to work out what is going on. In particular this time it was interesting to see how the amplitude changes with the leads reducing during the breath hold as my heart shifts in my chest.

So how do you think she handled this little test? And how insane were those skips? (My actual words trying to explain them was "beautifully effed")

Steth - Cardio IV

What do you think this gonna sound like?

I've always been interested in how hearts react to things... even the mundane of how she beats after eating. The body diverting blood to the stomach to digest the food and the heart beating faster to compensate? Well today I thought I would test that theory out for myself.

After eating some sushi I went to lay down and felt my little girl pounding a little bit. When I tried to record I kept getting interrupted with the loud gurgling sounds of my stomach no matter where I placed the steth. So for those of you that like belly sounds, this one is for you.

So did my heart react in the way you imagined? How much did she increase by?

Steth - Cardio IV