Plunging your face in a bowl of ice water for several seconds. Squatting low, tensing up and straining your body as if you're trying to lay an egg. Work out and slim down. Losing weight reduces the heart's overall workload. And aerobic exercise improves your cardiovascular fitness by conditioning the heart, lungs and muscles to use oxygen more effectively, says Dr. Willerson.
Exercise is also a great anxiety cure.
Avoid fad diets. They make your heart rate zoom, sometimes dangerously. Go on a doctor-supervised program instead. Ask about slo-mo medications. Cardiologists treat recurring and persistent tachycardias with a variety of heart-slowing drugs, says Jeremy Ruskin, M.D., director of the Cardiac Arrythmia Service at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.