I'm not sure there are too many benefits to having lived through years of PVCs, but if there's at least one, it's got to be finding coping mechanisms and tactics to reduce or eliminate them.

Those of you who are just experiencing your first bout with palpitations, skipped beats and extra beats, I envy you a little (because your "bad day" is probably what I'd call "Tuesday"), but my heart also goes out to you, because like you, there was a great deal of fear instilled in me that first day I suffered through some premature ventricular contractions.

One of my de-stressing and coping mechanisms when I'm having lots of PVCs is to go outside on a clear night and look at the stars. I'm not an astronomy buff, but I do own a telescope and have been fascinated with space since I was very young.

As I sit on one of our patio chairs, eyes trained on the heavens, I think about all that's going on up there. Is that Jupiter I see to the West? A storm bigger than Earth has been rolling around Jupiter's surface for at least 400 years. And Mars currently has some small, roving robots scouring it's surface, courtesy of the NASA. So much undiscovered history there.

And is that the Pleiades star cluster? I wonder if there are planets orbiting those stars. Probably. I wonder if any of those planets have some odd, tiny little bug crawling around on them. Or maybe a little plant. And in a hundred millennia, that little plant's great granddaughter might be something like an Oak tree.

All these amazing things, out in space. And here I am, one little human, worried about an upcoming project or the mortgage on our home. In the truly grand scheme of things, my worries are pretty small by comparison.

So small in fact, that I'm not as worried about them. And what do you know? My PVCs are starting to fade away.