One of the things my body does when I’m feeling stressed is make me more aware of my heartbeat. It feels like my heart is thumping really hard! The first time I experienced the thumping sensation, I was in college. It was kind of frightening to feel like my heart was beating hard when I hadn’t been exercising or doing anything at all! My doctor ordered and EKG to see what was going on in there.
An EKG (or ECG) is an electrocardiogram — a test that measures the electrical activity of the heart. With every beat of your heart, an electrical wave moves through your heart. That’s what makes the muscles squeeze and pump blood through your system. An EKG does NOT send electricity into your body; it only records the impulses moving through your heart.
So why would your doctor order an EKG? The electrocardiogram records two important kinds of information. It measures the length of time it takes the electrical impulse to move through the different parts of your heart. This can tell your doctor if the activity is normal. If it isn’t normal, the EKG can show whether the impulse is slow, fast, or irregular. The other thing an EKG measures is the amount of electrical activity in the heart. A cardiologist can use this information to determine whether parts of the heart are overworked, or even if parts of the heart are too large or too small.
An EKG reading has three parts. The first part of the wave is the P wave — this is the movement of the electrical impulse through the upper chambers of the heart. The second part of the wave shows up as a spike, as the impulse moves through the lower chambers. The last part of the wave shows the recovery period, as your heart returns to a resting state.
If your doctor orders an EKG, don’t be afraid. You won’t feel any pain, and there isn’t any risk associated with the procedure. The person giving the test will place the electrode stickers on your chest (and sometimes arms), and the machine will read the electrical impulses through your heart. Removing the stickers may feel like removing a bandage.