#124: ❤️ Is the Heart a Source of Intelligence and Guidance?
Why Your Heart is Smarter Than You Think
💬 In this note:
❤️ Is the Heart a Source of Intelligence and Guidance?
📚 What To Say When You Talk To Yourself
⚡️ Phone Detox
#124: ❤️ Is the Heart a Source of Intelligence and Guidance?
I think we can all read that question and get an inherent, intuitive - YES.
Obviously my heart is a source of intelligence!
Regardless of what our intuition says is the answer, scientists need proof.
Luckily, a group of researchers established the HeartMath institute in 1991 to answer this very question.
They set out to explore the connections between the heart, emotions and overall well-being.
The institute's foundation was built on exploring "heart-focused practices" designed to access intuitive guidance.
The Heart as an Intelligent Organ
The HeartMath research revealed the heart is not merely a pump, but an intelligent organ with its own complex nervous system.
This "heart brain" contains approximately 40,000 neurons that can sense, feel, learn, and remember independently from the cranial brain.
The evidence suggests that the heart actually communicates with the brain in four significant ways:
Neurologically (through the transmission of nerve impulses)
Biochemically (via hormones and neurotransmitters)
Biophysically (through pressure waves)
Energetically (through electromagnetic field interactions)
This multi-level communication network forms the foundation for what we might call "heart intelligence", the heart's capacity to guide our decision-making and emotional responses.
To study how the heart guides decision-making, the HeartMath researchers conducted comprehensive studies looking at heart rate patterns, brain activity, respiration, and more to identify which measurements most accurately reflected emotional changes.
Emotions Impact HRV
They found that heart rate variability (HRV), the variation in time between consecutive heartbeats, directly reflects our emotional state.
Positive emotions generate distinct, harmonious patterns in the heart's rhythm, creating what researchers termed a "coherent" state.
When someone experiences positive emotions, their body's systems start aligning.
Their heart rhythms, blood pressure, respiration rhythms and often a very low frequency brain rhythm become synchronized.
This state of synchronization, or what scientists call “entrainment,” is associated with relaxation and overall well-being.
They even found that different positive emotions create distinct coherent HRV states.
And, each positive emotion produces subtle variations in entrainment frequency.
For example, the heart rhythm patterns during appreciation, differ from those of compassion.
The connection is so reliable that analysis of HRV patterns alone can identify specific emotional states with approximately 75% accuracy.
Heart Intelligence in Action
Research from the HeartMath Institute has demonstrated that the heart often receives and responds to information before the brain does.
In studies where participants were shown random emotional images, their hearts responded to future emotional stimuli 4-7 seconds before they were actually shown on screen.
This suggests that the heart possesses a form of intuitive intelligence that operates outside our conventional understanding of time and perception.
This "heart knowing" appears to be most accessible when we're in a coherent state, meaning our heart rhythms are smooth and harmonious.
Many people report receiving valuable insights, creative inspirations, and guidance about important life decisions when practicing heart coherence techniques.
The Heart's Intrinsic Rhythm
Studies have revealed that a very-low-frequency (VLF) rhythm originates within the heart itself.
This intrinsic rhythm appears to be fundamental to health maintenance and optimal functioning.
The VLF is strongest when you're sleeping peacefully, and it gets really strong right before you wake up in the morning. If this VLF rhythm is disregulated, people often don't sleep as well.
Even more surprising, when scientists looked at hearts that were transplanted, they found the VLF was still there!
This means the heart itself - all on its own - creates this important beat.
Resetting Heart-Brain Neural Baselines
People can get stuck in unhealthy mental, emotional and behavioral response patterns.
When the current inputs (HRV patterns) match one of our previously established neural programs, they are recognized as familiar by the brain.
What is familiar to the brain is what we experience as safe or comfortable.
Importantly, this process occurs even when the previously established baseline pattern is one associated with overwhelm, anxiety, confusion, etc. which occurs when these states are repeated often enough for them to have become established as familiar references.
Regular practice of coherence techniques (a.k.a “heart-focused practices) changes the pattern of afferent (heart-to-brain) neural signals, creating more ordered and stable communication.
The combination of heart-focused breathing with positive emotional states reinforces the association between coherent rhythms and emotional balance.
This process establishes new baseline references that the brain strives to maintain, facilitating improved emotional self-regulation in daily life.
People who do "heart-focused practices" reported unexpected benefits for stress management, decision-making, and interpersonal relationships.
Practice: Heart-Focused Coherence Technique
Focus your attention on the area around your heart.
Imagine your breath flowing in and out through this heart area.
Establish a comfortable rhythm, slightly slower and deeper than normal.
While maintaining this breathing pattern, activate a positive feeling such as appreciation, care, or gratitude.
Continue for 3-5 minutes daily to build skill and sustainability.
📚 Book of the Week
What to Say When You Talk to Your Self by Shad Helmsetter, Ph.D.
Rating: ★★★★★
This book starts out by saying that the average person is told “No” 148,000 times before they become an adult.
That’s 22 times a day for 18 years.
That BLEW MY MIND.
And that is for the average person.
If you had very strict parents, that number could be 200,000 times or more.
That is heartbreaking.
It makes complete sense why many of us are hard on ourselves with our inner dialogues.
Helmsetter’s book, What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, is a guide to rewriting your brain in order to counteract this negativity bias.
To get started, he recommends:
Pay attention to your self-talk
Clear out the negative self-talk that doesn’t serve you
Replace negative self-talk with positive self-talk
He even gives several sample scripts
The key to successful rewiring of the negative self-talk is repetition.
Helmsetter tells stories of families listening to positive self-talk audio in the house have big transformations in as little as a few weeks.
The results only get better with practice.
What I plan to do is to record positive self-talk from the scripts in the book in my own voice and listen to it in the background as I get ready each day.
Can’t wait to see how it changes my inner voice.
This was a reader recommendation by Harry! Thanks Harry!!
⚡️ Check This Out
Three days without a phone can reset a smartphone-addicted brain.
Research out of Heidelberg University in Germany, published in Computers in Human Behavior, reveals that within 72 hours sans smartphone you can:
Boost cognitive flexibility and focus
Restore impulse control and emotional regulation
Increase brain activity in decision-making areas
Your brain is highly adaptable.
Even a short tech detox can reset digital dependence and improve mental clarity.
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Edited by Wright Time Publishing