How Feeling Good Boosts your Heart and Brain

Eve Menezes Cunningham looks at the HeartMath Institute, their research into stress, performance and coherence and how Olympian athlete Anna Hemmings is carrying the HeartMath torch.

Founded in 1991 in California by stress expert Doc Childre, HeartMath’s mission is to ‘help establish heart-based living and global coherence by inspiring people to connect with the intelligence and guidance of their own hearts.’ The Institute of HeartMath Research Centre studies optimal function, psychophysiology, resilience, stress, biophysics and neurocardiology...

Helping with Personal Stress

While HeartMath research has global applications, it can make an enormous difference to your own life, too. Asking yourself when you last felt genuine joy, love, hope or awe may seem self-indulgent. But, paying attention to the things that help you feel these positive feelings and making more time for them not only helps you get more done (and do it better) but will boost your heart and your brain.

Elite athletes and business executives are using HeartMath methods to enhance their performance, reduce stress and avoid burnout. HeartMath is the science behind the common sense; their research has been featured in publications from the American Journal of Cardiology and Stress Medicine and Harvard Business Review to the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times.

When we feel good, our whole bodies benefit. Of all the neural connections between the brain and the heart, 80% go in the direction from the heart towards the brain. This makes its even more obvious that the way we feel truly impacts all we do. Also, by creating emotional reserves of good feelings, we increase our resilience for those times when that wellbeing is really needed.

Actively helping ourselves feel good helps us create DHEA, a performance enhancer that’s banned as a supplement in sport which can be created naturally. As a bonus, creating DHEA inhibits the creation of the stress hormone cortisol. One positive feeling has benefits that can last in the system for hours.

Anna Hemmings and the HeartMath Connection

Two-time Olympian and six-time World Champion Anna Hemmings MBE is regarded as Britain’s most successful canoeist. No stranger to stress, Anna was told there was no cure for the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CI’S) that stuck her down in 2003, but she managed a full recovery and went on to win the last three of her six World Titles in marathon canoeing and competed in her second Olympics. Anna now applies what she’s learned in elite athletics to help other athletes and ordinary people improve their own resilience and handle stress better. Her company, Beyond the Barriers holds an official licence for the delivery of HeartMath programmes in the UK and is trained, regulated and approved by the HeartMath LLC.

‘Our perceptions and outlook are so important when we are at work and making decisions,’ says Anna. ‘A negative emotion sets off 1400 biochemical changes, overloading the nervous system with mental inconsistencies which deplete resilience and compromise performance.’ I imagined this being quite an extreme negative emotion, but Anna says it could be as simple as seeing an unopened email, recognising the person it’s from and making a negative assumption about its content. ‘Stress impacts our ability to think and respond appropriately. It is almost always an emotional response to a situation. Stress directly impacts how you feel at the end of the day, your health and your relationships.

In HeartMath terms, there is no such thing as good stress, but challenge is good. We all need a bit of challenge to improve our performance but too much reduces it, HeartMath helps extend the period of maximum efficiency.’ There’s a ‘fast track’ in our brain between the thalamus (known as the ‘messenger’) and amygdala, which stores emotional responses. ‘When the “fear response” is triggered, the amygdala hijacks the response,’ says Anna. ‘Our heart rate and blood pressure rise and adrenaline and cortisol are triggered. It’s a “Lion! Danger! Get me out of here” response, but the threats we generally face today are not life or death but more to do with expectation, ego, change, uncertainty and reputation.’ Fear activates the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, often known as ‘fight or flight’. The parasympathetic branch helps us calm down. ‘The parasympathetic branch stops us going into overdrive,’ says Anna. ‘The whole system works optimally when it’s in balance, it’s when we’re always in the sympathetic system response that the problems occur. There are no bad hormones, just bad levels.’

‘Fortunately, it’s easy to bring the nervous system into balance, producing beneficial biochemical changes. This increases mental clarity, builds resilience and enhances performance.’ For example, we need the sympathetic system to produce ‘stress hormone’ cortisol to get us up in the mornings. Too much cortisol, though, means we produce less ‘feel good’ DHEA, which energises us. High levels of cortisol and low DHEA lead to accelerated ageing, brain cell death, impaired memory and learning, decreased bone density, reduced muscle mass, reduced skin growth, increased blood sugar, impaired immune system function and increased fat. On the other hand, DHEA acts as a performance enhancer, prevents osteoporosis, improves skin hydration and condition and boosts the immune system. Looked at like this, the Law of Attraction ideas popularised by The Secret and Lynn Grabhorn, where raising good feeling and vibrations attracts good things, makes biochemical sense. High cortisol levels create what Anna calls a ‘vicious circle of submission and despair while high DHEA creates a ‘virtuous circle of success and wellbeing. ‘

The emWave Gadget

HeartMath measures Heart Rate Variability (HRV) rather than just the heart rate. ‘Coherence is the optimal state,’ says Anna. ‘Heart, mind and emotions are operating in sync and are balanced. Our ability to process information is much better when were in a coherent state.’ Telling us how HeartMath helps us interrupt and change the signals to the brain as we feel ourselves being hijacked. Anna hooked me up to one of their emWave2. machines, created by HeartMath founder Doc Childre, so we could all see my HRV projected onto the screen. ‘We’re not looking to lower the heart rate,’ says Anna, ‘but to move from incoherent to coherent.’ As she jokingly toyed to pressure me into singing in front of the group of strangers, we watched my HRV beat incoherently. Leading me through the HeartMath Neutral Tool, we saw coherence be restored, and I promised myself I would practice it regularly. ‘There are a series of HeartMath tools that incorporate breathing techniques and emotional shift techniques that balance the ANS, reduce levels of cortisol and stimulate DHEA production.’ You can also buy an emWave® gadget to observe your own results and train yourself into better habits.

Easy ways to make positive feelings a bigger part of your everyday life.

When did you last feel genuine joy? Look at your schedule for the coming week. Do any of your current plans look likely to bring you more joy? Do some look likely to drain you of joy? How can you increase your likelihood of feeling joy on a more regular basis?

When did you last feel truly inspired? What were you doing? What were you thinking about’? How can you fit more inspiration into your life? It might be something as simple as watching a documentary or film about someone who has overcome impossible-seeming odds or scaled great heights in their field. Maybe it’s reading about them or going to a talk or somehow offering your services to work with them.

What makes you laugh? Whether it’s a matter of picking up the phone or meeting up with a hilarious friend more often or renting funny films and watching comedies, make time for laughing Out loud. When were you last awe-struck? While this may seem an impossible quality to ‘schedule in’, by identifying the times you’ve felt awe most, you’ll be better able to put yourself in  situations where you feel it again.

When do you feel most serene? Make time to meditate (or whatever else works for you) more often.

What gives you hope? It can feel fragile sometimes, so be mindful of this. Avoid harsh media and people if you’re struggling and seek out good news. Newspapers such as Metro include a ‘Good Deed Feed’, which is pretty heart-warming.

When do you feel proud of yourself? Whatever it is, do it more often. Build on your success.

When do you feel most loving? Identify these times, and arrange to see these people or do these things as often as possible.

Imagine feeling these qualities like physical exercises. Scheduling them in, while sounding contrived, will, remind you that your body – and your spirit – will benefit. And during those times when you’re feeling far from loving, joyful, proud etc., you can imagine those feelings by thinking of a time you felt it strongly. While it will take practice, you can learn to recreate them and positively influence your body’s biochemistry whilst also feeling better.

For information on Anna Hemmings’ HeartMath programmes, go to: www.beyondthebarriers.co.uk