Reducing the Effects of Stress and Trauma: The HeartMath System for Military Personnel

Health Professionals - Programs

Facilitating Reintegration and Recovery

The HeartMath® System

HeartMath has developed a research-based system of scientifically validated tools, techniques and technology to increase emotional self-regulation. The HeartMath system has been tested in multiple health care, athletic, educational and corporate settings around the world as well as many military medical and psychiatric facilities.

The HeartMath system incorporates emotional refocusing and restructuring tools and techniques that are facilitated by heart-rhythm-coherence monitoring, the computer-based emWave® Dektop and the emWave2® handheld unit. Individuals learn to reduce stress and anxiety, improve health, learning, performance and quality of life in session as well as during home practice.

Military personnel gain increased awareness of the habitual mental and emotional processes that underlie their stress and become more able to catch the onset of these feelings and patterns, thus diminishing their influence.

HeartMath techniques facilitate establishing a new psychophysiological baseline for sustainable behavioral change and resets maladaptive emotions and physiological baselines at the heart, brain and hormonal levels.

Military personnel will learn how to transform stress through a set of research-based tools to:

• Develop emotional resiliency
• Improve cognitive performance
• Enhance decision making under pressure
• Reduce fatigue and sleeplessness
• Decrease friction in relationships resulting in improved communication with spouses and children
• Enhance combat readiness for soldiers before deployment

HeartMath techniques can be taught to individuals and family members of all ages.

HeartMath technologies and training programs are currently being used by:

• Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSW)
• Recreational Therapists
• Licensed Therapists
• Licensed Professional Counselors
• Psychiatric Nurses
• Psychologists
• Occupational Therapists
• Speech Pathologists

Emotional Resilience Training

An Intervention to Use in the Office and at Home

HeartMath programs can be effectively used to increase stress resiliency and a broad range of cognitive functions in military personnel prior to deployment and to facilitate reintegration and reduce symptoms of combat stress reactions in troops returning from deployment. HeartMath programs can also be used to help personnel reduce stress and anxiety and to facilitate recovery in a broad range of applications in military medical centers, psychiatric facilities and PTSD clinics.

A key component of the HeartMath system is the emWave® technology which greatly facilitates the learning of the HeartMath self-regulation skills and the ability to shift into the “Coherent State”. Coherence is a state of optimal mental, emotional and physiological functioning associated in numerous studies with improved health and well-being outcomes. The HeartMath approach focuses on establishing a restructuring of the neural and biochemical processes and activity patterns required for sustained behavioral change

There are several unique elements of this program

• Skills taught are highly portable. Both the emotion-refocusing techniques and the monitoring technology can be employed by anyone, at any time, and in any location.
• The tools and technology have been shown to be highly effective in reducing the symptoms characteristic of combat operations stress reactions (COSR).
• The program has significant potential to help with the stress of PTSD.
• The delivery mechanism is easily replicated and scalable, up or down.
• The delivery approach reduces concerns related to stigmatization.
• The intervention is home-based, so no travel is required and phone appointments can accommodate the schedules of the participant.
• The skills taught in the program are self-empowering and promote self-reliance.
• The tools have been shown to increase cognitive functions adversely impacted by combat deployment (problems related to sustained attention, memory impairments and over-reactivity).
• The program will enhance combat readiness for soldiers who are likely to be redeployed.

emWave Stress Relief System

The emWave Desktop technology is an easy-to-use software program with a heart rhythm monitor. emWave Desktop is an innovative approach to stress relief based on learning to change the heart rhythm pattern and create physiological coherence in the body.

When stressed, the heart rhythm has an irregular, jagged and incoherent pattern. When the military personnel shifts to a more positive emotional state, the heart rhythm pattern changes to a smoother, wave-like, coherent pattern. By seeing the visual change on the screen and associating it with a more peaceful, calm internal state, the military personnel learns to manage stress and maintain a state of physiological coherence and balance.

Games and interactive exercises are also included to help sustain the self-regulation and emotional skills and can be used in the office.

emWave2

The emWave2 is a portable, interactive stress relief system that fits in the palm of the hand and is a home trainer to use in the moment the stress occurs.

emWave2 reads the heart rhythms through a thumb or ear sensor and gives immediate feedback through changing colored lights and sounds. By practicing the HeartMath tools while using the emWave2, an individual can see their coherence level increase as they learn to manage their stress and gain greater control over their emotions, mind and body.

Benefits that Military Personnel Experience Regular use of the emWave technology products has resulted in significant stress reduction benefits by military personnel with PTSD, chronic pain, anxiety, anger, depression, sleeplessness, panic disorders, irritability, mood disturbances, impulse control and substance abuse.

There is a Solution

HeartMath tools and technologies are being used in:

• Amputee Centers - where the emWave Desktop Stress Relief Program and other HeartMath programs are helping military amputees learn to control pain, manage emotions and handle the stress of surgeries and recovery.
• Psychiatric Services Facilities - where military personnel returning from Iraq or Afghanistan are practicing with emWave technology to develop skills in dealing with PTSD, anger and anxiety, along with the reintegration and transition process.
• Substance Abuse Program - where military personnel are learning HeartMath techniques and utilizing the technology to overcome their substance abuse problems.
• PTSD Clinics - where military personnel in support groups are learning HeartMath techniques to assist with emotional management and to recover from PTSD.

Research Study in progress:
Cognition in Recently Returned Military Personnel with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder by HRV Coherence Feedback

The HeartMath System is also valuable to the practitioner working with stressed and anxious military personnel experiencing pain and suffering so the practitioner can stay balanced and resilient. GSA schedule # GS-35F-0311R • heartmath.gsamart.com

For licensed healthcare professionals who seek advanced practitioner training, HeartMath Interventions Certification Program is also available.