Home Remedy for Heart Palpitations

Heart palpitations occur for a variety of reasons, including an increased work load, lying on your left side, anxiety, a very full stomach, constipation, flatulence, and smoking excessively. While it's always a good idea to see a doctor when you experience heart palpitations, you might also want to try some home remedies.

Common Foods

• Many foods can help ease heart palpitations. Grapes are one of these, and drinking grape juice can often relieve this condition. Also, a ripe guava, when consumed on an empty stomach, can be beneficial if the heart palpitations have been caused by anemia or nervousness. Honey is another tasty food that can help, especially since it is so easy to digest. Try drinking a tablespoon of honey with the juice of a half a lemon in a glass of water before bedtime.

Unusual Treatments

• For a more exotic remedy, you could try taking 1 or 2 tablespoons of the juice of snake gourd leaves three times a day. Another interesting choice is Indian spikenard. This herb stimulates the action of the heart and can be taken in 2- to 3-gram doses combined with a pinch of camphor and cinnamon. Another effective mixture combines equal amounts of jaggery, dry coriander and powdered aniseed. Take about 6 grams of this mixture after each meal, and see if your heart palpitations improve.

Diet

• Along with the foods mentioned above, someone suffering from heart palpitations should stick with a simple diet of natural foods consisting of mostly fresh fruits and either raw or lightly cooked vegetables. You should eat only three meals a day. For breakfast, try fruit, milk, and a handful of nuts or seeds. A good lunch would consist of steamed vegetables on a whole wheat tortilla with a glass of buttermilk. And for dinner, you might eat a fresh vegetable salad with cottage cheese, and water to drink. Try salmon or mackerel, both of which may help reduce arrhythmia.

  You should also stay away from alcohol, coffee, tea and soft drinks, as well as products that contain sugar, white flour, food coloring and chemical additives. You could benefit by avoiding strong condiments and white rice. Overeating is also not a good idea, so stay away from all-you-can-eat buffets.

Other Recommendations

• If you suffer from heart palpitations, you need to do your best to relax and avoid stress. Try getting more sleep at night. Meditation also can be an effective technique for combating heart palpitations. You could try other non-vigorous exercises such as swimming, walking, bicycling and yoga. But stay away from highly competitive sports, since this could aggravate your condition. Always warm up and cool down before you undertake any exercise, especially since short, quick bursts can make the condition worse. Other culprits for aggravating the condition are certain drugs--decongestants, beta blockers, tricyclic antidepressants, digitalis, calcium channel blockers, and cimetidine (Tagamet), a drug most commonly used to treat ulcers.

  Just remember that any natural remedy you try for treating heart palpitations should be approved by your doctor, especially if you have other medical conditions or if you are taking any prescription medications.