UNDERSTANDING HEART-BRAIN COHERENCE - VOLUME 12, ISSUE 11 - MARCH 2021

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This month, I'm taking another look at the heart from a different perspective: heart-brain coherence. Scientists are demonstrating that the heart is much more than a pump. Over the past several years, a new understanding of the heart in relation to the brain has been unfolding.

First, what is coherence?

The term "coherence" is used by scientists to describe a highly efficient physiological state or a state of optimal function. While we will focus on heart-brain coherence, coherence applies more broadly to the body's systems working efficiently and harmoniously.

With respect to heart-brain coherence, it helps to understand that the heart is much more than a pump. Research is proving that the heart may be as intricate as the brain; it has over 40,000 neurons and the ability to process, learn and remember. It also has its own emotions.

In The HeartMath Solution, authors Doc Childre and Howard Martin examine and summarize over 30 years of research on the role your heart plays in your health, happiness, well-being and longevity. Their research demonstrates that the heart is a command centre of great intelligence and intuitive knowledge tied into every system and cell of your body. Some of their key discoveries include:

  • The heart's electromagnetic field is the most powerful field generated by your body. It is projected throughout the body and radiates several feet outside of you.

  • Your heart provides you with emotional and intuitive guidance to help you direct your life.

  • Core heart feelings affect the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. Core heart feelings (love, appreciation, compassion) down-regulate the activity of the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) and increase the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest).

  • Your heart rhythms are mirrored in your emotional states. Negative emotions, such as fear, anger and hostility, create disordered and irregular heart rate variability. Positive emotions create improved order in the heart's rhythms.

  • The heart's rhythm pulls all the body's systems into a state of entrainment or synchronization.

  • Positive emotional states have a balancing effect on the nervous system by strengthening immunity, enhancing hormonal function and improving brain function.


Heart-brain coherence is defined as the state when the heart, mind and emotions are in energetic alignment and cooperation. It is a state that builds resilience.

The heart actually sends more messages to the brain rather than the other way around, as has been commonly believed. These heart signals have a significant effect on brain function, influencing emotional processing, as well as higher cognitive faculties, such as attention, perception, memory and problem-solving.

In contrast to the effects of negative emotions, the more ordered and stable pattern of the heart's input to the brain during positive emotional states facilitates cognitive function and reinforces positive feelings and emotional stability. This means that learning to generate increased heart rhythm coherence, by sustaining positive emotions, benefits the entire body and also profoundly affects how we perceive, think, feel and perform.

How can I create heart-brain coherence?

It is impossible to do justice to this topic in a short newsletter, but here is a technique based on work by the Institute of HeartMath, and presented by Gregg Braden.

3 Steps to Learn to Harmonize Heart and Brain:

Step 1: Focus Your Heart

Action: Allow your awareness to move from your mind to the area of your heart by putting your palm (or a finger, or whatever is comfortable for you) over your sternum/heart.

Result: This sends a signal to your heart that a shift has taken place—you are no longer engaged in the world around you and are now becoming aware of the world within you.

Step 2: Slow Your Breathing

Action: Begin to breathe a little more slowly than usual, allowing five seconds for your inhale and five seconds for your exhale.

Result: The only time you would breathe this way is when you feel you're in a safe place. Feeling safe frees your body to let go of stress hormones and awaken healing chemistry, such as your immune response and anti-ageing hormones.

Step 3: Feel a Rejuvenating Feeling to Harmonize Heart and Brain

Action: To the best of your ability, feel a genuine sense of caring (or love), appreciation, gratitude, or compassion for anything or anyone.

Result: These four feelings will trigger the experience between our heart and our brain to create heart-brain coherence. This process results in such things as creativity, sharp thinking and resilience. It is a trigger for over 1300 biochemical reactions, from anti-ageing hormones to cardiovascular health and a healthy immune response. The biochemical reactions will continue for at least six hours after you complete the exercise.

You can learn about further steps for solving problems and resolving upsetting emotions from both Gregg Braden's material and the Institute of HeartMath.

I hope you find this information helpful. Please contact me if you would like further information about heart-brain coherence.


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References:

  1. Clément S. Heart coherence is perhaps the most important thing you need to know today. https://www.gaiameditation.com/heart-coherence/ March 6, 2020. Accessed February 3, 2021.

  2. The science of HeartMath. https://www.heartmath.com/science/ Accessed February 3, 2021.

  3. Brady A. The coherent heart: 3 steps to accessing heart intelligence. https://chopra.com/articles/the-coherent-heart-3-steps-to-accessing-heart-intelligence November 10, 2017. Accessed February 22, 2021.

  4. Heartmath, coherence and HRV. http://www.flowingintelligence.com/heartmath-coherence-and-hrv/ Accessed February 22, 2021.

  5. Childre D, Martin H. The HeartMath® Solution.HarperCollins e-books (Hardcover edition: April 1999).

  6. Braden G. How to harmonize the heart and the brain. Threshold Notes http://www.threshold.ca/reiki/Threshold_Notes--NS-Harmonize-Heart-and-Brain.html Accessed March 3, 2021.

  7. Braden G. How to harmonize heart and brain. YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=237WCALmJXQ Accessed February 22, 2021.


Disclaimer: The suggestions and recommendations in this newsletter are not intended to be prescriptive or diagnostic. The information is accurate and up to date to our knowledge, but we are not responsible for any errors in our sources of information.