Curious observation - anyone have an explanation?

Alan_Cross

As part of a cardiac rehab regime I have to do a cardiovascular workout five times per week.

For this I use a pulse meter to ensure I'm reaching the required levels and to monitor the warm up and cool down.

The other day I noticed something which I can't explain. For the first time I can remember, I sneezed during the exercise. To my surprise, my heart rate increased immediately afterwards by a significant amount and stayed at the higher level for a good half minute plus before descending.

Normally I can adjust matters quite promptly by increasing or (in this case) decreasing effort... but here it failed to respond as expected.

I didn't really pay this much attention and have had several days of normal exercising since... and then today it happened again!

I can't really work out what's going on here. Does sneezing encourage an adrenaline release or suchlike? I appreciate this is a bit of trivia but would be interested in anyone's ideas.

dunroving

It may not be an actual physiological response. It could be a hiccup in how the heart rate monitor works. The fact it didn't correct immediately could simply indicate the fact that for some of these devices the heart rate is calculated as a rolling average.

dunroving

Sorry couldn't edit the last post on my phone. Next time it happens put your first two fingers on your medial pulse or on your carotid pulse (don't press too hard). If your heart isn't racing then it's just a brain fart in the monitor.

peachyprice

It is actually a thing, sneezing increases your heart rate due to the deep breath usually taken before a sneeze, which increases pressure in the chest and briefly inhibits the flow of blood to the heart, which can lower blood pressure and increase the heart rate.