How to Shed Stress Proactively – Using Your Heart Mind

To briefly recap, in Stress 105 Heart Mind and the Gut-Brain  we introduced a better way of shedding stress out of the system using two major sources of body energy, the Heart-Mind, and the Gut-Brain. 

This week we’ll delve into more on The Heart Mind and how to shed stress more fully. As usual, I’ll be using research insights to inspire you and remind you of the benefits and practical tips to get you started. The goal is to shed stress not only in response to triggers but also proactively, so you can better manage your all-day energy, relationships, and mindset. In Stress 106, we looked extensively at Using Your Gut-Brain.

Using Your Heart-Mind  

In Stress 105 Heart-Mind and Gut-Brain Overview, we also reviewed how positive emotions can be self-induced by holding a focus of genuine compassion, and mind-body techniques based on the heart have shown to improve the body’s response to stress by 240%.  

Participants also reported a general state of well-being, relaxation, and increased energy which often lasted throughout the day. Other studies have shown that cultivating feelings of appreciation can generate similar heart energy patterns. This article includes a one-minute technique — try it for yourself at Stress 103 Learning to Let Go More. 

Intro and Early Research

This week we’ll delve into the fascinating science of the Heart Brain, learn about heart activation and why it’s so important, and how we can use it to shed stress at home using simple but powerful techniques.  

Research from multiple disciplines shows the human heart is much more than an efficient pump. The heart is a highly complex information-processing center with its own functional brain called the heart brain, that communicates with and influences the head brain via the nervous system, hormonal system, and other pathways. These influences affect brain function and most of the body’s major organs and play an important role in our mental, emotional, and quality of life experience. 

Some of the first researchers in the field of psychophysiology to examine the interactions between the heart and brain were John and Beatrice Lacey. During 20 years of research throughout the 1960s and ’70s, they observed that the heart communicates with the brain in ways that significantly affect how we perceive and react to the world. 

While the Laceys were conducting their research in psychophysiology, a small group of cardiologists joined forces with a group of neurophysiologists and neuroanatomists and started a new discipline now called neurocardiology.  

One of their early findings is that the heart has a neural network that is sufficiently complex and extensive to be characterized as a brain on the heart. And naturally, the heart-brain is vital for the maintenance of cardiovascular stability and efficiency, and without it, the heart cannot function properly.  

Since the early 1990s, The HeartMath Institute has pioneered research that not only looks at how stressful emotions affect the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the hormonal and immune systems but also at the effects of positive emotions such as appreciation, compassion, and care.  

Like earlier scientists in the 1960’s and 1970's HeartMath researchers also observed that the heart acted as though it had a mind of its own, and could significantly influence our basic awareness, perceptions, and interactions. 

They found that stressful or depleting emotions such as frustration and overwhelm are reflected in the rhythms of the heart, and adversely affects the functioning of virtually all bodily systems. This eventually led to a much deeper understanding of the neural and other communication pathways between the heart and brain.  

For example, we now know that the normal resting rhythm of the heart is highly variable rather than monotonously regular, which was the widespread notion for many years. We’ll get to a more fascinating history and the forward-thinking science of coherence next week, as we explore links to intuition and other exciting areas of opportunity. 

The Results Speak for Themselves 

Several studies have found significant correlations between these heart activation and coherence techniques, and improvements in cognitive function and self-regulatory capacity. For example: 

A study of middle school students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD showed a wide range of significant improvements in short- and long-term memory, ability to focus, and significant improvements in behaviors both at home and in school. 

A study of recently returning soldiers from Iraq who werediagnosed with PTSD found that relatively brief periods of heart activation & coherence training resulted in significant improvements in the ability to self-regulate along with a wide range of cognitive functions. The degree of improvement correlated with increased cardiac coherence. 

The Heart-Brain is a Simple But Powerful Resource  

Part of the beauty in these techniques is they can be quite simple and yet very powerful. Below is an overview of the foundational breathing. Later in the article, we will add a visualization component.  

Heart-focused Breathing 

The first step in most of the techniques is called Heart-Focused Breathing, which includes placing one’s attention in the center of the chest around the heart, and imagining the breath is flowing in and out of the chest area. Make your breath a little slower and deeper than usual. Studies have shown a 10-second rhythm (five seconds in and five seconds out) increases cardiac coherence and starts the process of shifting into a more coherent state. 

Now that we have the foundation of the breath, let’s add some more insights and tips to shed stress. 

Inside Your Heart-Brain  

The heart-brain, or intrinsic cardiac nervous system, is an intricate network of complex ganglia, neurotransmitters, proteins, and support cells just like those of the brain in the head. The heart-brain’s neural circuitry enables it to act independently of the cranial brain to learn, decide, and even feel and sense.  

More recent research shows that the heart brain has both short-term and long-term memory functions and can operate independently of the central nervous system. 

The anatomy and functions of the intrinsic cardiac nervous system and its connections with the brain have been explored extensively by neurocardiologists, who have discovered that the heart sends much more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart.  

No wonder, as we saw in Stress 103, the simple Quick Exercise: Hand on the Heart — 

When you place your hand and attention on your heart, you’re activating the calming parasympathetic branch of the nervous system that runs from the heart to the head.  

And this is just the start, as you’ll read below in powerful insights and examples. 

Your Heart as a Conductor 

In addition to its extensive neurological interactions, the heart also communicates with the brain and body via the hormones and neurotransmitters it produces, which have a wide-ranging impact throughout the body. 

The heart was reclassified as part of the hormonal system in 1983 when a new hormone called atrial natriuretic factor (ANF) produced and secreted by the atria of the heart was discovered. Nicknamed the balance hormone, it plays an important role in fluid and electrolyte balance and helps with the release of stress hormones, reduces stimulation (arousal), appears to interact with the immune system, and is a key biomarker for heart disease. And experiments suggest it can influence motivation and behavior. 

And more recently, it was discovered the heart also manufactures and secretes oxytocin, in the same range as those produced in the brain. Oxytocin can act as a neurotransmitter and commonly is referred to as the love or social bonding hormone. Oxytocin also has been shown to be involved in cognition in addition to tolerance, trust, friendship, and bonding.  

In Stress 103 we looked at how oxytocin is the body’s direct and immediate antidote to the stress hormone cortisol, and how oxytocin also repairs any damage to the physical heart caused by cortisol. 

We also saw how warm, safe touch releases the oxytocin, and reviewed a simple but powerful exercise to activate oxytocin and release stress. 

Coherence Overview 

We mentioned coherence earlier and introduced how heart-focused breathing tends to increase coherence and help feel the experience of positive emotion. Turns out this breathing is just the start, and the real magic comes when we add visualization. 

In fact, many contemporary scientists believe the condition of our body determines the quality and stability of the feelings and emotions we experience.  These body states are either positive or coherent, meaning the regulation of life processes becomes efficient, or even optimal, free-flowing and easy, or negative, such as anger, anxiety and frustration.  

These findings reinforce what people have intuitively known for eons- positive emotions feel better, increase synchronization of the body’s systems, and enhance energy efficiency and effectiveness. 

However even though coherence is a natural human state that can occur spontaneously, sustained episodes generally are rare. Using the breathing methods alone may induce coherence for brief periods.  However, there is in fact solid research that people can achieve extended periods of heart coherence by actively self-generating positive emotions.   

Generating Positive Emotion 

In a study of the effects of five types of prayer on HRV, it was found that all types of prayer elicited increased cardiac coherence. However, prayers of gratefulness and heartfelt love resulted in definitively higher coherence levels. 

Also typically when people are able to self-activate a positive or calming feeling rather than remain focused on their breathing, they enjoy the shift in feeling and are able to sustain high levels of coherence for much longer time periods. 

And yet this takes a little practice to modify the typical cortisol stress trigger that is a habit of the mind. The key is to have ready techniques to quickly put into place, that can take advantage of the speed of the calming response. 

Advantage Calming – But Better Act Fast  

Following the trigger of stress (called sympathetic stimulation), there is a delay of up to 5 seconds before this stimulation induces a progressive increase in heart rate (HR), which reaches a steady level in 20 to 30 seconds if the stimulus is continuous. This is slow in comparison with the calming (parasympathetic response), which is almost instantaneous.  

However, the effect of sympathetic stimulation on HR is longer lasting and even a brief stimulus can affect HR for 5 to 10 seconds.  So if you miss, no wonder it gets away from us. 

Doc Childre, HeartMath Institute founder expressed it this way: “Since emotional processes can work faster than the mind, it takes a power stronger than the mind to bend perception, override emotional circuitry, and provide us with intuitive feeling instead. It takes the power of the heart.”  

Other Starting Tips 

Studies have shown that cultivating feelings of appreciation can generate similar heart energy patterns. It can be helpful to make a list of things to appreciate. It can also be as simple as the first thought that comes to mind. It can also be as simple as the first thought that comes to mind, ‘if it carries enough feeling.’

For example, when you also remember a moment of feeling safe and loved with someone, you’re also activating the release of oxytocin, and may actually feel the warm glow of the oxytocin as it washes through your body, bringing you to a sense of safety, trust, and calm. Work to savor this feeling and cultivate it in your body. 

Shed Stress Class

This concludes our heart-brain encore to our 4 step B-A-L-M approach to shed stress proactively without spending all day meditating. Next week we’ll finish up Heart-Mind with more on intuition and how to use it shed stress. 

Use this body-centric B-A-L-M approach to shed stress and stop it from draining your energy and health. It contains powerful, sustainable, and simple exercises that open doors of possibility in the future.

“The Shed Stress - 4 Weeks to Better Sleep and Lower Stress” will be launching mid October! This course is designed to help you shed stress and build a reservoir of calm in this chaotic time.  Click Here to receive a bonus demo and be notified when the class goes live. 

This technique is a simple but powerful mind- body practice incorporating grounding, breathing and visualization that can easily be done at home.  

‘Build a body awareness and desire for the energy (and the release) we’re cultivating here through this practice – rather than mental, executive function-based prompting’