Make sure you read Alan’s summary of his episode, and what research that goes along with it. My doc 35 years ago told me what I did was not healthy, as compared to people that just exercise. Back then he had been studying all of this along with a couple colleagues, and they determined that elite endurance athletes were 3 to 4 times more likely to end up with heart anomalies, seems it has been pushed out to 5 now. Like he said, if you live long enough, and keep exercising, you are quite likely to get some anomaly with your heart, just how it is.
Good news is that there is a lot you can do, pre and post. One thing a lot of people overlook, or just fail to mention, is that your mineral balance can be a huge factor, even the trigger in a lot of cases. When you go to the docs for this stuff, make sure you get a full workup on magnesium, sodium, potassium, and note the ranges for your particular tests. You could be right on the low end, and guess what, they tell you are normal. But I guarantee you, one 3 hour hot bike, or hour run, and you are way down in the danger range. I have been around a lot of people with this, and magnesium seems to be the most important, but the others are not far behind.
And often times it is a combination of factors, had a few beers the night before, hard workouts the prior week, shitty sleep, few cups of coffee in the morning to snap out of that funk, spouse or work is causing you added stress, and you have been eating shitty for a few days. Then BAM!!!, you have enough of the stresses and you are in Afib. So now that you know, start to really watch all these things and mitigate them. Dont let them pile up all together, and as others have said, you have to unload every once in awhile to get back to being fresh again…
good luck, a lot of people once they know the triggers, can stay off the ablation surgery for a very long time. And even after, you still have to watch yourself, you are not brand new again. It often will come back in time, if you live long enough that is…(-;
I’d echo Monty’s point on the importance of triggers too. I don’t see “you have a-fib” as a binary deal. I’d agree, based on my experience to date, that you can do a lot to impact the incidence (for better or worse).
When I dialed my caffeine way down and my sleep way up, the incidence of the episodes definitely decreased. I also avoid ibuprofen & I try not to do any high intensity sessions late in the day. I also watch my HRV and back off without any hesitation on day/s that might be iffy. Another thing that I’ve tried based on some studies is dialing my antioxidants way up (I’d previously avoided antioxidant supps because of the research on antioxidants messing with training response but I figure, at this point, this is more important )
For the most part avoiding doing the things that my dumb younger self did on a regular basis - not listening to my body, taking huge amounts of caffeine, ridiculously early morning starts/late night finishes to get the training in, ‘Vitamin I’ to quiet down all the aches and pains etc
The episodes are still present but I’d say the above changes have definitely impacted the frequency for the better.