When some people receive an atrial fibrillation diagnosis, their first question is whether medication and surgery are really necessary. Can the condition (an irregular, quivering contraction in the walls of the heart’s upper chambers) be reversed naturally?

Unfortunately, we don’t have much substantial data on treating atrial fibrillation (“A-fib”) without medication or surgery. Given what we know today, we can say that you’re unlikely to cure yourself of the condition by pursuing natural methods alone. But, depending on the severity of your case, natural methods could help you avoid flare-ups and keep symptoms at bay.

Don’t downplay the condition

While it’s true that some natural practices might help control A-fib, it would be a mistake to ignore the seriousness of A-fib by telling yourself, “Well, I’ll just handle it naturally.” While you may be able to live with A-fib and experience only minor symptoms or even none at all, your stroke risk is now five times higher than that of the general population because the compromised beating of your heart fails to thoroughly drain its chambers, leaving behind pools of blood that could clot and travel to the brain, causing stroke.

Have a serious conversation with your doctor about your stroke risk and ask what part natural remedies might play in your treatment plan. Given the elevated risk of stroke, most doctors will want you to get on an anticoagulant medication even if you’re pursuing natural ways of addressing A-fib. Anticoagulants don’t correct the irregular heartbeat. Instead, they suppress the clotting factor in the blood to help prevent stroke. Some anticoagulants may not mix well with certain traditional or over-the-counter supplementary treatments, so be sure to inform your doctor about any plans to try natural remedies for A-fib.

Lifestyle changes—the original natural remedy

The best natural approach to managing A-fib is a healthy lifestyle. You should strive to adopt a heart-healthy lifestyle whether you’re pursuing a natural or more modern medical approach to managing you’re A-fib. In fact, lifestyle is often considered the “fourth pillar” of atrial fibrillation management, along with rate control (managing the heart’s rate), rhythm control (correcting the heart’s rhythm), and anticoagulation (reducing stroke risk by preventing clotting).

In essence, lifestyle interventions boil down to taking good care of your heart. They should include:

  • A healthy diet. To be clear, we don’t yet have solid evidence that adopting a heart-healthy, plant-based eating pattern such as the Mediterranean diet can reverse A-fib. We do know, however, that such diets help to control high blood pressure and overweight, both of which strain the cardiovascular system. Unfortunately, most of the data we have regarding the relationship between diet and A-fib focuses on the risk of developing atrial fibrillation, not on the efficacy of these diets for treating or reversing it. There is good evidence that marine fish, extra-virgin olive oil, and plant-based eating patterns incorporating a lot of fruits, vegetables and fiber are associated with reduced risk of developing A-fib. It’s therefore no great stretch to imagine that those eating patterns are likely to help control fibrillation in people who have already been diagnosed. And at the other end of the spectrum, we have evidence showing that a diet high in ultra-processed foods, fried foods, and salt is associated with greater risk of A-fib.
  • Exercise. Physical activity is shown to have three distinct benefits when it comes to A-fib. First, it helps control other lifestyle factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and overweight, which are known to drive up the risk of developing A-fib. Second, it appears to lower risk of A-fib as an independent factor. And third, it improves symptoms and quality of life for those already diagnosed with the condition. At least one small study suggests that yoga in particular is a great form of exercise for A-fib. When 49 atrial fibrillation patients between ages 18 and 89 put in three hours of yoga per week for three months, their number of A-fib episodes decreased significantly.
  • Stress reduction. There is some evidence that anxiety and stress are risk factors for developing atrial fibrillation. One study suggests that people who already have the condition are more than twice as likely to experience an episode when they’re feeling worried or stressed out. Therefore, stress-reduction techniques such as meditation, mindfulness, hobbies, music, and dance are likely to do good, and certainly won’t do harm.
  • Good sleep. A study by researchers at the University of California San Francisco found that a poor night’s sleep caused atrial fibrillation patients to have a 15% higher risk of an episode, and that regularly getting poor sleep was linked to longer-lasting episodes. You should especially take care to treat sleep apnea if you have it, since it is an independent risk factor for A-fib.
  • Abstention from smoking and drinking. Smoking appears to increase a person’s risk of developing A-fib, so it stands to reason that smoking cessation should be a part of any effort to manage atrial fibrillation after it’s been diagnosed. The evidence linking alcohol consumption to A-fib episodes is stronger. A 2021 study found that for every 0.1% increase in blood-alcohol level, the odds of experiencing an A-fib episode increase by 40%.

Other natural remedies to reducing A-fib risk

Besides maintaining a healthy lifestyle, there are other natural interventions worth considering, although it should be kept in mind that more research is needed before we can say definitively that they are all safe and effective.

For example, a 2022 meta-analysis found that acupuncture significantly benefitted atrial fibrillation patients. While acupuncture is generally considered safe, its efficacy for controlling A-fib requires further study.

A Chinese herb extract known as Wenxin Keli was found in a 2015 study to help maintain a regular heart rhythm and to reduce the symptoms of atrial fibrillation. An additional analysis was conducted in 2022, with similar findings, but its authors noted that more standardized and comprehensive studies were needed “to reach more convincing conclusions.”

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