This article, based on research at the Institute of HeartMath, explains how through studying changes in the heart’s electromagnetic field, our emotional state (governed by positive, or negative thinking) has been found to affect heart rhythm, having a wide effect both physiologically and psychologically.
For example, it is suggested that increased efficiency and harmony throughout the body’s systems is supported by the coherent rhythmic pattern of a heart beating in response to positive emotions, such as love and appreciation.
Psychologically, this has knock on effects, reducing internal mental dialogue, perception of stressful events and increasing emotional balance and mental clarity, to name a few.
Negative emotions on the other hand, such as anger and frustration, have been linked to erratic, incoherent heart rhythms.
“Sustained positive emotions appear to give rise to a distinct mode of functioning, which we call psychophysiological coherence.”
Not only do our positive emotions benefit ourselves, through our heart, health and happiness, they also have an impact on our awareness of and how we relate to others.
Experiments have found that we communicate with and exchange “heart energy” and those in a state of psychophysiological coherence are able to more easily synchronise their brain waves with another’s heart field.
This means that those of us who are functioning coherently in this way are able to be more aware and more sensitive to the information coming from the heart fields of others.
With the recognition that the heart has its own functional ‘brain’, which can receive and process information and make it’s own decisions independently of the brain, in fact, even influencing the higher centers of the brain involved with emotional processing, perhaps we should all try to focus more on the positive, enabling our two ‘brains’ to work better together, making us more aware and, hopefully compassionate, both towards ourselves and others.
Read more here: The Heart has its own “Brain” and Consciousness.
