In recent months, a female college student in Taichung City often has a sudden and violent chest beating, which is even serious enough to make her stop what she is doing. The symptoms of palpitation are good and bad, especially when staying up late for exams or rushing to report for duty. Traditional Chinese medicine points out that palpitation is a common chief complaint symptom in outpatient department. Except for a few cases, most of them may be related to stress, improper diet and living habits. Many patients can return to normal after TCM conditioning.

Chinese medicine says that palpitations caused by stress and improper diet can be improved through Chinese medicine conditioning. Wu Yiqian, an attending physician of the Chinese Medicine Department of the Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, said that palpitation is a symptom of patients' conscious heartbeat, often accompanied by chest tightness, dyspnea, dizziness, night sweats and other discomfort. First of all, it is necessary to distinguish whether it is a normal physiological reaction, such as nervousness, exercise and accelerated heartbeat caused by pregnancy. If it is, it is mostly temporary, generally not accompanied by other obvious symptoms, and will recover on its own.

Secondly, we can distinguish between cardiac factors and non-cardiac factors. Western medicine can find out some heart causes, such as arrhythmia, valvular disease, hyperthyroidism or other endocrine problems, but it is still necessary to rule out the influence of diet pills, caffeine and other drugs. As for non-cardiac factors, most of them are attributed to autonomic nervous disorder, but this conclusion often makes patients more anxious and promotes the increase or deterioration of attack frequency.

Dr. Wu Yiqian said that from the perspective of Chinese medicine, palpitation is closely related to the pressure of life and schoolwork, and improper diet and staying up late habits will aggravate symptoms. Treatment should be based on the patient's physique, benefiting qi and nourishing heart, nourishing yin and clearing heat, nourishing heart yang, promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis, or clearing heat, regulating qi and resolving phlegm. Prescriptions should also be used as appropriate, such as roasted licorice soup, Shengmai drink, Tianwang Buxin Dan, Zhenwu decoction, Xuefu Zhuyu decoction or Wendan decoction.

However, Dr. Wu Yiqian reminded that this kind of adjuvant therapy for calming the nerves still needs to be coordinated with routine conditioning and diet therapy, and gradually nursed back to normal so that the body and mind can return to normal as soon as possible.