“You gave me a heart attack!” can be one of the most common phrases people use to describe extreme anxiety or fear during a situation. However, these events do affect your heart, as well as the food you eat and how much (or how little) you exercise. For an exercise in heart-stopping image viewing, check out the photos below to see if you have what it takes to view them all without developing palpitations.

1. Cliff camping

Not everyone likes camping, or even being outdoors, but most people want to avoid even being in such a precarious spot as cliff campers. Although more common than suspending a mattress over a multi-hundred-foot drop, cliff campers actually tether their tents against a cliff to spend the night. A mixture of climbing, daring and sleeping between certain death and a hard place, cliff camping isn’t for the faint of heart.

2. Extreme parkour

You may or may not be familiar with parkour, a freerunning phenomenon that gained popularity in the late 1900s and early 2000s. Jumping, running, vaulting and doing flips to create a path using any object but the ground seems like something only a few people can do, but it certainly attracted the attention of millions during its heyday.

3. Close calls

If you know anything about rock climbing or mountaineering, you’ll take one look at this photo and cringe. Let’s hope that the photographer took time to secure his or her own harness elsewhere before stopping to snap the photo.

4. Scary spiders

If you’re like most people, the shape and look of arachnids give you the heebie-jeebies. Seeing one on your computer screen might not make you break out into a cold sweat, unless it’s a heart-stopping photo. Regardless, it’s pretty certain that the only thing worse than seeing a giant spider in the corner is seeing a giant spider surrounded by its newly hatched (and numerous) offspring. That, and losing the spider before you can swiftly defend your turf.

5. Steep drop-offs

The pictures that fit this description are a dime a dozen, but what’s really panic-inducing is seeing a photo of people hanging off cliffs on purpose. There’s a fine line between seeking adventure and just plain foolishness, but most viewers of this photo agree that the subjects have crossed the line. In this case, though, it seems that an optical illusion has these people dangling safely.

6. Fat-filled meals

Some meals just seem to be setting people up for heart problems when they’re so filled with trans fats and grease. Still, it doesn’t stop enthusiasts from trying new mixtures of favorite fast foods such as pizza, hamburgers and fries. This pizza might look tasty, but just gazing at it could make your heart beat faster trying to keep up with all the extra work it would have to do if you actually ate a hamburger-fry-pizza.

The moral of the story is that with the right diet and exercise routine, your heart will be healthier and less prone to problems in the future. And while some pictures are unsettling, it’s not likely that they can actually cause you a cardiac episode. If you have concerns about your heart health, talk to your local heart specialist at Salt Lake Regional Medical Center today.

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