In a few words, heart coherence focuses on the fact that when the heart is allowed to guide the body and the mind, great things can be achieved. More importantly, the state of heart coherence can give you access to better health, both physically and mentally. But the benefits go far beyond what you can ever imagine.
In this article, you’ll find out how developing heart intelligence can literally help you perceive the world in a different way and help you live a more harmonious and happier life. You’ll also learn simple techniques to achieve heart coherence and experience its amazing benefits.
Our heart is intelligent.
Heart Intelligence is defined as a “flow of intuitive awareness” by the HeartMath Institute, pioneer research institute in this field. When our emotions and mind are brought into coherent alignment with the heart, our brain and heart are operating in a synergetic way. We then experience a deeper intuitive inner guidance. In other words, heart intelligence can also be defined as the ability of our heart to sync all of the systems of our body to bring a higher state of awareness, and to bring more clarity and focus to our lives.
The heart is capable of great things. HeartMath Institute’s studies also tend to confirm that the heart plays a key role in intuition. Could the heart be our inner guide and the key to help us find our purpose in life?
“To reach your destination, follow the directions of your heart. It knows the way.” (Debasish Mridha)
One thing is for sure, our heart is much more than we used to think.
“Coherence” refers to a state of optimal performance.
The term “Coherence” is used by scientists to describe a highly efficient physiological state in which the following systems, nervous, cardiovascular, hormonal and immune, are all working efficiently and harmoniously. It is the highest level of function where all our bodies are working together as one at an optimal performance level.
The heart plays a major role in our emotional intelligence.
Our heart possesses a network of 40,000 neurons called “sensory neurites” which provide a direct line of communication to the brain. These thousands of neurons are also the reason why we can call the heart “intelligent”. In fact, the heart has the ability to function in an independent way. It can sense, process information, make decisions and even demonstrate a type of learning and memory.
Did you know that the heart sends more information to the brain than vice versa? The signals sent from the heart to the brain can regulate our emotional experience.
The importance of heart-brain communication.
As you may have noticed, when you are in a situation of fear, your heartbeat starts to accelerate. So this is clear that our heart directly responds to how we feel. However, we now know that the rhythmic activity of our heart can directly affect how we feel. It sends signals to our brain and that plays a key role in determining the quality of our emotional experience at a precise moment. If we experience negative emotions, the heart will send a signal via its rhythmic pattern to the brain which will mirror these feelings. Therefore, this negative emotional experience will be reinforced. In fact, the type of chemicals that are released into our bodies depend on the quality of the emotional signal sent from the heart to the brain. In a situation of big stress, the brain will respond by releasing hormones like cortisol which can turn to be harmful for our health if it is produced in excess.
Positive emotions lead to coherent heart rhythm patterns.
Your emotions are reflected in your heart rhythm patterns. When you’re stressed or generally expressing negative emotions (fear, anger, hate, frustration…), your heart rhythm patterns look chaotic. This is called an “incoherent heart rhythm pattern” by scientists. You may have noticed that when you’re stress, your creative thinking is impaired, you have trouble sleeping, your immune system gets disturbed etc. This is totally logical, because the incoherence of the rhythmic activity of your heart inhibits higher cognitive functions such as attention, perception, memory and problem-solving.
However, when you’re expressing positive emotions like love, joy, gratitude, compassion etc., you’re creating a state of coherence (“coherent heart rhythm pattern”). Your heart rhythm patterns look smooth, ordered and stable. It helps your body’s systems synchronize and work better. It therefore enhances your ability to think clearly, learn, remember, reason and make optimal decisions (peak performance).
Wouldn’t it be nice to intentionally experience these positive emotions to affect your heart rhythms and your overall well-being? If you are able to change your heart rhythm patterns in an ordered and stable way (coherence), then you are able to change your emotional outlook. It’ll therefore affect how you perceive, feel, think and perform.
Check out our heart coherence tools further below.
Heart coherence allows all the major systems of the body to work together harmoniously. This means that the cardiovascular system is working in conjunction with the immune system, as well as the endocrine system and the nervous system. In other words, it sets the stage for optimum health and maximum physical and mental performance. Instead of allowing yourself to become stressed, you can become more resilient that what you thought was ever possible.
Benefits of heart coherence:
When all of your body’s systems are functioning together in harmony, you will notice a great improvement in how you feel overall. You will be less sick and have more energy to accomplish your daily tasks.
Here are a few health benefits of heart coherence:
- Reduces stress and anxiety (reduction of level of cortisol).
- Boosts your immune system
- Releases anti-aging hormone (DHEA)
- Enhances the functioning of your nervous and digestive systems
- Improves quality of your sleep
- Boosts your energy level
When you achieve the heart coherence state, it also means you are functioning at your peak performance. You will then see vast improvements of your cognitive functions:
- Enhancement of focus and concentration
- Improvement in learning
- Improvement in problem-solving skills.
The heart coherence also enhances one of the most important things you need in your daily life: your intuition. You’ll be able to make wiser decisions.
Globally, heart coherence helps to increase your resilience. It’ll be easier for you to overcome difficult situations and get back to your “normal” state.
Implications of heart’s intuitive intelligence:
Developing the heart intelligence is a way for individuals to become more aware and in tune with what is going on within themselves as well as what is going on in the world around them.
When you shift into a state of coherence, you can rely on your heart’s intuitive guidance to help you find peace and harmony within yourself, to improve your social connections and to become an asset to the world. This is called “heart-based living”.
Those that are in touch with their own heart intelligence (Personal Coherence) are more suited to be a beneficial part of society (Social Coherence) which translates into people that can take action to make the world a better place (Global Coherence). Those that have achieved coherence are people that will be able to have a more positive impact around them.
This totally relates to what Gandhi said: “Be the change you wish to see in the world”. If you want the world to change, you have to start by changing yourself. By the way, this is totally the philosophy of our website Gaia Meditation. This is why we promote so much the practice of meditation as we believe that it is the most powerful way to change our own energy field.
Our heart electromagnetic field affects reality.
Every person has an electromagnetic field that surrounds them. There are essentially two different sets of electromagnetic fields in your body. They both can be measured in a medical setting.
The brain electromagnetic field is the one that affects your brain waves and how your brain functions. The other electromagnetic field is the one that controls the beat of your heart. This heart electromagnetic field is the largest in your body as it is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the electromagnetic field produced by the brain. It is also 5000 times stronger magnetically.
The electromagnetic field produced by the heart has a huge influence on us and beyond. The heart electromagnetic field has the ability to “mirror” our inner emotions out into our world. It can affect people, animals and the environment around us as well. Studies show that the Earth’s magnetic field affects us in profound ways but we are also affecting it every day as everything is interconnected. So this is very important to feed ourselves with positive emotions in order to establish a personal coherence and then a social and global coherence. We all have a part of responsibility in this.
Achieving Heart Coherence
Let us introduce you to a few easy and quick techniques to achieve the state of heart coherence. You can practice any time during the day or just before your meditation practice for example.
1. “Heart Infinity” by Gaia Meditation:
We have created a series of controlled breathing exercises called “Heart Infinity” in order for you to reach that heart coherence state. Our heart’s rhythm is modulated by our breathing patterns. So breathing with a regular rhythm can help to achieve this state of coherence. These breathing exercises will only require 5 minutes per session.
Here’s a basic exercise combining the heart coherence breathing cycle of 5 seconds inhalation / 5 seconds exhalation and abdominal breathing:
To get more information and to practice more FREE Heart Infinity exercises, please click here.
2. “Breath Of life” by Gaia Meditation
If you prefer to practice with your eyes closed, we have created special audio guides for you to achieve the heart coherence.
Listen to “Breath Of Life” audio guide now
3. Quick Coherence Technique by the HeartMath Institute:
It requires only 60 seconds to achieve it. This technique combines breathing together with the intentional self-generation of positive feelings such as joy, compassion, care, love etc. This is more efficient for coherence to emerge.
With a little practice and an open mind, you will be able to achieve things that you had only hoped would be possible before. These ideas and techniques can lead you to new opportunities. It can help you to achieve fulfilment and peace in your life.
Are you excited about it?
Please let us know what you think about heart coherence and if you have ever experienced it. Just leave us a comment below. Thanks!
