AFib Episode Log Template: Onset, Duration, Triggers, Heart Rate

Why a Written Episode Log Beats a Month of Guessing

If you have paroxysmal AFib, you already know the problem with describing episodes at an appointment. How long did it last? Maybe an hour. Maybe three. Heart rate was fast. How fast? Not sure. What were you doing? Something, probably. By the time you sit down across from your cardiologist, the details that would actually change your treatment have evaporated. This AFib episode log template is designed to help you do exactly that.

A written or digital log closes that gap. It turns vague recollection into the structured data your electrophysiologist needs to decide whether your current rhythm control strategy is working, whether a trigger pattern is visible, and whether the burden of AFib is climbing or falling over time.

This template is built for the kind of AFib most people have: episodes that come and go, often at night or after specific triggers, with wide variation in duration and symptom severity. Print it and keep it by the couch.

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What Your Cardiologist Is Actually Looking For

When your electrophysiologist asks about your AFib, they are trying to answer a few specific questions. What is your AFib burden, meaning what percentage of your time is spent in AFib. Are episodes getting longer, shorter, or staying the same. Is there a trigger pattern that changes the treatment plan. Is rate control holding during episodes. Is the current antiarrhythmic still suppressing breakthrough episodes.

None of these questions can be answered with “I had a few episodes last month.” They can all be answered with a log that has date, duration, peak heart rate, and trigger columns. The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology both include symptom and episode burden tracking in their guidelines for AFib management decisions, including whether to offer catheter ablation.

What to Track for Each Episode

Start and Stop Time

Note the time you first felt the episode begin and the time your rhythm returned to normal. If you are not sure of the exact start, write your best estimate and mark it as approximate. Exact stop time matters more for treatment decisions than exact start. Self terminating episodes that last less than 48 hours are in a different clinical category than persistent episodes.

Peak and Average Heart Rate

If you have a smartwatch or a home blood pressure cuff with a pulse reading, take a reading at the start, in the middle, and when the episode ends. Note the highest number you saw. A rate controlled AFib episode typically stays under 110 beats per minute. Rates above that sustained during an episode are a conversation to have with your cardiologist about rate control medication.

Symptoms During the Episode

Palpitations, shortness of breath, chest pressure, lightheadedness, fatigue, anxiety. Rate each 0 to 3. Chest pressure and lightheadedness in particular are worth flagging to your care team, especially if they are new.

Likely Trigger

Write what you think it was, even if you are not sure. Alcohol the night before, poor sleep, a big meal, dehydration, caffeine, stress, a cold, a skipped dose of medication, exertion. Over three months of logging, patterns become obvious that cannot be seen in a single episode.

What Stopped It

Self terminated, vagal maneuvers, rest, a pill in pocket antiarrhythmic, cardioversion. This column tells your cardiologist how reliably episodes are breaking on their own and whether your pill in pocket strategy is working.

The Episode Log

Date	Start	End	Duration	Peak HR	Symptoms	Trigger	What Stopped It
__/__	___	___	___	___	____________	____________	____________
__/__	___	___	___	___	____________	____________	____________
__/__	___	___	___	___	____________	____________	____________
__/__	___	___	___	___	____________	____________	____________
__/__	___	___	___	___	____________	____________	____________

Keep one sheet per month. At the end of the month, count the number of episodes and add up the total duration. That is your monthly AFib burden in rough terms. It is the single most useful number for a cardiology visit.

Putting the Log to Work

Before your next appointment, spend five minutes looking at the last three months of entries. Count the episodes. Note the longest one. Flag any trigger that shows up more than twice. If you had any episodes with chest pressure or lightheadedness, mark those as the ones to discuss first.

Hand the sheet over at the start of the visit. Do not try to summarize from memory. Your cardiologist will read it faster than you can describe it, and the conversation that follows will be about what to do next, not about what happened.

If you are on an antiarrhythmic like flecainide, propafenone, dofetilide, or sotalol, the log also tells you whether the drug is still suppressing breakthrough episodes. A rising burden at the same dose is a conversation to have sooner rather than later.

For a digital version that captures heart rate from a smartwatch and auto calculates your monthly burden, the AFib Tracker App builds the same log automatically and exports a report for your appointments.

What 30, 60, and 90 Days of Tracking Reveals

In the first 30 days, the log teaches you how often episodes are actually happening, which is almost always different from what you remembered. By 60 days you will start to see trigger patterns that were invisible one episode at a time. By 90 days you have a burden trend line, which is the number your cardiologist will use to decide whether to adjust medication, refer for ablation, or hold course.

Start the next episode with this log open. One row is enough.

Medical disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. If you have new or worsening chest pain, severe lightheadedness, or fainting, call 911 or seek emergency care.