A change of heart changes everything

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All you need is love, sang John Lennon. True, according to most people. The only challenge: how do you create love? A quite startlingly simple answer was found to that question in the redwood forests of Boulder Creek, California, south of San Francisco. A California institute demonstrates how people can actually make their heart beat in a healthier way. Through its research, the Institute of HeartMath proves that health starts with love, and that love can reduce stress.

Courtesy of Ode Magazine

It is a method that is used by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and more than 100 organisations - from global corporations to hospitals to government agencies and schools.

Since 1991, the Institute of HeartMath has generated a large body of convincing scientific evidence that it is indeed possible to create love.

HeartMath’s research shows that emotions work much faster, and are more powerful, than thoughts. And that - when it comes to the human body - the heart is much more important than the brain to overall health and well-being - even cognitive function - than anyone but poets believed.

Its dominance inside the body is now clearly demonstrated. Thinking clearly with your brain is useful. But feeling positively from your heart provides an amazing boost to health and creativity.Briefly re-experiencing a cherished memory creates synchronization in your heart rhythm in mere seconds. This increases the release of healthy, energising hormones, while at the same time decreasing levels of damaging stress hormones, at the same time your immune system is strengthened, blood pressure decreases … and health and focus increase.

Using a simple prescription that consists of a number of exercises that anyone can do anywhere in a few minutes HeartMath is successfully battling the greatest threat to health, happiness and peace in this world: stress.

Stress is the plague of our time, an epidemic that is spreading rapidly. The World Health Organisation (WHO) raised the alarm 20 years ago, but things have only gotten worse. Every day some one million Americans fail to come to work due to stress. The European Union estimated in 2000 that the annual price tag of stress, in the form of healthcare costs and lost productivity, amounts to some three to four percent of the EU’s gross domestic product.

Stress is one of the most important causes of high blood pressure, which afflicts one in three adults in Europe and North America and is the cause of many serious illnesses such as heart disease and stroke. Stress also lies at the basis of depression and burnout.

“The good news is that the negative effects of stress can be effectively countered more easily than people might imagine. This leads to better performance in every aspect of life. It is therefore a smart strategy for every organisation to tackle this source of excessive costs and human strain,” according to HeartMath’s president and CEO Bruce Cryer.

That insight has now permeated many companies and institutions. Managers are sent to stress seminars. Yoga lessons are offered at company headquarters. And there are even companies that encourage their employees to take holidays. But these measures aren’t very effective as long as stress continues to permeate the corporate culture. The sense of relief from a yoga lesson or a weekend at the beach is often lost during the first chat with a frustrated colleague at the coffee machine.

A successful anti-stress strategy provides results precisely at the moment the stress is experienced.

As Cryer says, “HeartMath is not based simply on belief. There are proven physiological reactions in how emotion, heart and brain interact.”

But HeartMath’s heart-driven method extends much further than relaxation through say, meditation. Cryer notes, “Meditation is mainly geared towards consciously separating yourself from the reality around you. That has totally different physical consequences than our approach, which is geared towards actively adding positive energy to a particular situation.”

To measure the heart’s reaction to particular events, HeartMath uses a relatively new concept - one that is currently a hot item in mainstream medicine - as an indicator of a healthily functioning body: heart rate variability (HRV). Research conducted 10 years ago by Dr Andrew Armour of Dalhouse University in Halifax, Canada showed that the heart has its own neural network - in essence, a little brain. HRV - the rhythm of the time period between two heartbeats - plays a key role in that network. It has now been demonstrated that the heart sends signals to the brain and the hormonal system via nerves which carry the heart rhythm patterns. It doesn’t matter so much how many times a heart beats per minute; it’s the rhythm of the heartbeat that counts.

Cryer explains, “With every heartbeat, information is supplied that affects our emotions, our physical health and the quality of our lives.” This means that feelings of compassion, love, care and appreciation produce a smoothly rolling - HeartMath calls it “coherent” - heart rhythm, while feelings of anger, frustration, fear and danger emit a jagged and capricious - ”incoherent” - image. But this is more than a statistical difference. HeartMath’s research shows that a different heart rhythm leads to other chemical and electrical - even neurological - reactions in the body.

Simply put: when people experience love, they not only feel happy and joyful, but they also produce, for example, more DHEA, the hormone that prevents aging, and gives us feelings of youthful vitality. Not surprisingly, a synthetic form of the hormone is currently sold in pill form at drugstores and health food stores. At the same time, the production of damaging stress hormones like cortisol is reduced. High levels of cortisol have been associated with Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, depression and fatigue. By contrast, a “loving body” absorbs less cholesterol, thereby preventing arteries from clogging while boosting production of immunoglobulin A, an important biochemical that boosts immune function. In addition, blood pressure stabilizes.

But how do you “change your heart?” According to HeartMath research, it is much simpler than it looks. Cryer says, “If you consciously shift your attention to a positive emotion, like appreciation or care, or if you allow your thoughts to return to the feeling of a cherished memory, your heart rhythm changes immediately.”

Is HeartMath the only effective answer to stress? Clearly not. Every walk on the beach is beneficial. The same goes for an enjoyable concert. And for experiences of friendship and love.

Just think about how you feel in the presence of someone who is appreciative or caring, compared to being close to someone angry or frustrated.

Cryer notes how, “A lot of people feel powerless. Climate change. Poverty. War. Terrorism. There are so many things we could fear in the world. So where do you start as an individual, when the size of the problems seem so daunting? It is important to know that you can have a demonstrably positive effect on the world. We can change the world, starting with ourselves.”

The root of most of our world’s problems is a lack of emotional management, a lack of understanding, care, respect and compassion. Most organizations and governments are fairly dysfunctional, because their leaders lack skills to manage themselves emotionally, let alone be an example for others to follow. That dysfunction damages the planet every day.

All you need is love, John Lennon sang. It’s as simple as that.