How to Make Your Heart Grow Fondness—And Improve Your Health: Part 2
Randy W, Green, Ph.D.
It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.
Eckhart Tolle
Recall from “Part 1,” that the smooth heart rhythm, measured by heart-rate variability (HRV), is what scientists call a highly ordered or coherent pattern and is a sign of good health and emotional balance. In contrast, stress that leads to frustration and other negative emotions pull us away from the natural rhythm or coherent wave pattern that is reflected in a healthy lifestyle.
So in order to reduce stress, anxiety, frustration and other negative states you need to act in ways that generate a coherent heart wave pattern. One useful way to train HRV coherence is to get physical: engage in cyclical aerobic exercise. Another way to get there is to follow your heart…
Applying Dr. Dardik’s Superwave Principle to everyday life, rather than functioning in isolation, we are all connected through a network of waves, in this instance, heart waves—you’ll see.
From a heart-based perspective, we influence one another through the electromagnetic field that is generated by the heart with each beat. This field that extends a few feet out from your body, carries messages in the form of signals to the hearts of others in your vicinity. It literally encodes your emotional state—the state of balance you’re presently experiencing—and conveys that to others.
As we express these emotions and attitudes out into the world we influence others, who in turn, influence us both positively and negatively. This is particularly evident within families. When we are centered and balanced, we create a more harmonious environment. These are behavioral manifestations of a coherent heart wave pattern. When we are stressed and frustrated, we telegraph a different message to others. Essentially then, someone achieving high coherence affects another person’s coherence.
Surely you have known someone who is so creative, quick and funny that being in his or her presence is transformative- it shifts your mood and allows you to express behaviors and feelings in that moment that perhaps had not been there moments before. And you just can’t seem to get enough of him! In fact, this shift can occur when you don’t even know a particular person. That’s why we go to comedy clubs, movies, concerts and interesting public venues. These experiences generate peaceful, stimulating and uplifting feelings.
Keep in mind the ability to influence others holds whether you are frustrated and angry or peaceful and lighthearted (not to pun!), thereby expressing appreciation, compassion or love. The former states reflect incoherence and rob your body of vitality whereas the latter represent renewing, coherent states, healthy positive ones that are expressed out into the environment.
So a highly coherent state, in which your biological oscillating wave systems are in synch, generates signals throughout your own body as well as communicating to others that you are in a balanced state of mind and body. And by being present to others – family members, friends, and coworkers—even dogs—they can “entrain” to your state of being, meaning they become influenced in a positive way and in turn do the same to you, thereby creating a positive feedback loop, which further strengths and sustains coherence!
When you engage in aerobic “interval training” exercises to achieve coherent states, as suggested in Part 1, your attention is on the exercise itself, not necessarily your heart. However, placing attention directly on your heart in a unique way, according to some research, can be a powerful force, which produces coherence.
According to “Heartmath”, a pioneering organization for this research, the company was founded by Doc Childre in 1991 to “help individuals, organizations and the global community incorporate the heart’s intelligence into their day-to-day experience of life…. by connecting heart and science in ways that empower people to greatly reduce stress, build resilience …and (make) better choices.”
They developed a three-step process for achieving coherence, using a biofeedback program to measure your progress. You can perform and perfect these steps at home:
(1) Place all your attention on the area in your chest where your heart is located.
(2) Imagine breathing, gently, through your heart—inhaling through one end and exhaling through the other.
(3) After a few moments when you have established a breathing rhythm, think of someone or something you love—a person or pet, consider what you appreciate in life. Remember a time when you have shown great courage or passion. Enthusiasm, compassion and kindness are some other emotions that can be incorporated.
Building coherence, like any other skill set, requires repetition. Practice this sequence a few times per day for about three minutes each time. After a while, as discussed in Part 1, asystem-wide restructuring of your neurological baseline occurs so synchronized and resilient patterns of activity become ever more familiar to the brain and nervous system, which can lead to a remarkable sense of well-being.
Incidentally, creating neural sensitivity to more positive states using heart-focused emotions is catching on! For example, Dave Asprey, an entrepreneur who did extensive research in the field of nutrition and developed “The Bulletproof Diet”, has found that positive emotions such as, gratitude literally rewire your brain in ways previously mentioned. He advocates “journaling”, a process of placing attention on gratitude and recording it. One such recording device is called “The Five Minute Ap” and can be obtained from the ap store.
Remember, heart-based emotions influence others both positively and negatively. And as you might expect, absence (of stress) makes the heart grow fondness!
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