“Goodbye,” said the fox. “Here is my secret. It’s quite simple: one sees clearly only with the heart.”
- Antoine De Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
Do you remember a time you felt “in The Zone?” When things seemed to line up just right, so that whatever you were doing, it felt effortless and joyful? Can you remember dropping into the sense of flow, of being at ease, of clarity? Whether it was riding a bike, gardening, playing a game outside with a friend, shopping, skiing a powdery run, cooking a favorite meal, it is no different -- being in The Zone is a state in which the body, mind, and heart are functioning perfectly in tune. Creativity flows, internal resistance is minimal. You feel at one with whatever you are doing.
I would like to introduce to you a powerful tool you can start using right away that can help transform feelings of stress into the state we can call “The Zone,” or “Coherence.” HearthMath, an organization that for almost 20 years has been researching the science of the heart-brain connection, has developed a stress-reduction method that can easily be learned and used anywhere. This 3-step method is called the “Quick Coherence Technique” and has been shown in numerous studies to have profound effects on reducing anxiety, improving mood and attention, and helping the body heal. It works by helping us quickly shift into a positive, heart-centered emotional state.
Before you read on, I encourage you to take a few moments to slow down and try this yourself:
The 3 Steps of the “Quick Coherence Technique”
Heart Focus - Focus your attention on the area of your heart. If you like, you may put your hand over the area to help keep your attention there.
Heart Breathing – As your attention is on your heart, try and imagine your breath flowing in and out of this area. Breathe gently into your heart to a count of five or six, and exhale from your heart for a count of five or six.
Heart Feeling – As you are breathing through the area of your heart, allow yourself to recall a positive feeling. This may be remembering a time when you felt wonderful and were filled with a sense of caring, love, appreciation, or joy. Allow yourself to re-experience it. It can be a feeling of sincere appreciation for a special person or pet, or recalling a place you felt safe and at peace. Try to recall the sensory details – how did it really feel, sound, look? Try to sustain this if you can by continuing the Heart Focus and Heart Breathing steps as well.
You may notice as you do this, a feeling of clarity, slowness, or perhaps warmth in your chest. When practicing Quick Coherence for longer periods, such as 10-15 minutes, the changes that begin to happen are quite profound, including:
Increasing our “Heart Rate Variability”, or HRV, which is one of the most critical physiologic measures of overall health and which decreases by 3% each year as we age. High HRV, also called “Coherence,” is associated with decreases in depression, high blood pressure, heart attacks, cancer, and all-cause mortality.
Our heart and brain function in-sync, allowing improved use of the cerebral cortex, which allows greater clarity of thought and creativity. Being “more in our heart” actually helps us think more clearly!
Our bodies increase release of DHEA, called the “anti-aging hormone” and “a feel-good hormone,” and decrease release of the stress hormone cortisol.
The sympathetic, fight-or-flight part of our nervous system calms, and the parasympathetic, rest-and-digest part activates, allowing greater internal balance.
Over time as we practice, we are able to sustain positive emotional states more easily and to respond with greater resilience when intense negative emotions come up.
HeartMath created a device called the EmWave to help people practice the Quick Coherence Technique. There are actually two EmWaves: the EmWave Desktop, which uses a desktop or laptop computer, and a cellphone-sized portable unit called the EmWave PSR (Personal Stress Reliever). As I work on this article, I’m using my PSR unit which tells me, through gentle chimes and lights, when I am in a Coherent state as I write this. While writing, driving, or meditating, I find this very helpful for guiding me from a stressed state back into Coherence. And in my medical practice, I have found HeartMath a powerful tool for treating patients with anxiety and depression.
Using one of these devices is not required to practice the Quick Coherence Technique. However, it is amazing in its ability to immediately see and hear the device responding as one goes from a stressed state to a positive emotional state. Research has shown that negative emotions like anxiety, anger, sadness, and worry reduce HRV, taking a toll on our bodies. In contrast, emotions like love, joy, and gratitude can immediately increase our HRV and trigger the Coherent state. Using beautiful visual displays, games, and trainings, the devices coach the user to enter and stay in a positive emotional state and thus increase Coherence. The more it’s practiced, the easier it gets.
HeartMath stress reduction programs using EmWave are in use at several major hospitals including Duke and Stanford University’s medical centers, to address the toll that stress-related disease takes. One estimate shows that 75-90% of disease is stress-related. The EmWave is also used worldwide in corporate wellness programs. Studies in major corporations as well as in healthcare workers showed programs using EmWave had remarkable effects in decreasing feelings of anger, dissatisfaction, fatigue and anxiety, and improving worker performance.
Other studies using HeartMath’s devices showed:
Reduced blood pressure in hypertension
Improvements in asthma symptoms
Increased calmness, well being, and emotional stability
Improved cognitive performance
Improved cognitive functioning in children with ADHD
Decreased health-care costs
Increased functioning in patients with congestive heart failure
To close, I’d like to quote David Servan-Schreiber, MD, Ph.D in his book The Instinct to Heal, in a chapter describing HeartMath and Coherence:
“By reducing physiological chaos and maximizing coherence, we automatically feel better immediately. We improve our relations with others, our concentration, our performance, and our bottom line. Progressively the ideal circumstances we are constantly seeking begin to come about on their own… and we actually have a better grip on our world.”
May you find yourself more able to easily release stress and re-enter the positive emotion state that our hearts love!
