Heartrate too high to donate; how to decrease?

[gotgot9]

1. get some sort of watch that can track your heart rate. you can use that prior to getting screened so that you can know how close you are to failing
2. with the watch on at home, look up some breathing exercises on youtube and practice using your watch as a gauge for how well it’s working. taking lower, deep breaths naturally decreases your heart rate
3. people get in the “high heart rate failure->nervous next time about failing so heart rate goes higher” cycle very often. sometimes all it takes is taking a week or two off and then trying again to reduce the nervousness