Pulse Decreases When Stressed

[Steve]

I've been struggling with my metabolism for years now ever since getting Grave's Disease or something similar. I can eat an entire bottle of T3 & it has no effect.

One thing that doesn't make any sense to me is that my pulse will plummet when I get stressed, specifically from social anxiety, such as after getting stuck in a long conversation. Once the long conversation ends I always feel kind of trashed & my pulse goes super low.......like right now it's 48 after a long conversation this morning.

Why on earth would stress make my pulse drop rather than rise?

 

[Hugh Johnson]

Could be learned helplesness. See polyvagal theory. As a human, you have fawn, fight, flight and freeze reactions to stress. Freeze is the most primitive one, and one that the body resorts to once other ones have been overwhelmed. You may have been under such stress that your body now freezes in response to stress instead of increasing activation. Look up the freeze reaction and see if it seems like it could fit.

Other than that, what kind of temperatures do you have? You may be stuck in a low body temperature, which may explain why T3 does not work.

 

[Steve]

Could be learned helplesness. See polyvagal theory. As a human, you have fawn, fight, flight and freeze reactions to stress. Freeze is the most primitive one, and one that the body resorts to once other ones have been overwhelmed. You may have been under such stress that your body now freezes in response to stress instead of increasing activation. Look up the freeze reaction and see if it seems like it could fit.

Other than that, what kind of temperatures do you have? You may be stuck in a low body temperature, which may explain why T3 does not work.

I'm going to look in that for sure. The funny thing is I am almost certain I have learned helplessness. That's always in my mind. For years & years I had gambling losses & no matter what I did I'd lose & lose again & lose again & lose again & lose again & lose again. Guess I had an addiction. So it was just years of non-stop stress & losing, losing, losing, losing, losing. I know without a doubt it did damage beyond financial losses.

My temp is 97.1 in the mornings. It will often get to 98.6 but not until the afternoon, and sometimes it doesn't get that high seeming to stall at 97.9 to 98.1.
Thanks for the suggestion as I have never heard of polyvagal theory.

 

[Hugh Johnson]

There are a number of things I suggest for dealing with trauma, because that's what you have if you have LH.

Hypnosis, meditation, TRE, Rosen therapy, tantra, breathwork, letting go a la David Hawkins, loving self a la Matt Kahn, Radical Honesty. I use most of these, and I know all of them work for many people.

 

[Steve]

Thanks again!
"The final phase is the freeze response. This is activated by a different part of the vagus nerve. There is a dramatic decrease in the heart rate, blood pressure and respiratory rate."
Funny thing is that I kept reading about the Vagus Nerve when I first got sick years ago.
I have an incredibly low respiratory rate to go along with this, so I hope this finally solves the mystery for me, so I can start working on healing.
Gotta lot of reading to do now.

This polyvagal stuff really seems to fit,
"After a moment, the lioness starts her chase. The gazelle she’s singled out runs as fast as he can (sympathetic nervous system), until he is caught. When he is caught, he instantly goes limp (parasympathetic nervous system)."

That is exactly what I do when I get just a little frustrated. My body just goes limp & I hang my head & I just stand there for a minute depressed (and usually a little dizzy for lack of a better word). And it doesn't take much. If I'm in the kitchen cooking & my girlfriend gets in my way a couple times, or if I reach for something & it's not where it should be, or any other very minor frustration. I just give up until I can force myself to start moving again.