The Amazing Power of Care

Posted on | by HeartMath

Watching the news these days can leave one feeling like our world desperately needs more care.

Care is a transformative energy realized through our emotions, our attitudes our relationships and how we live our life.

We know care is important and that it’s nourishing. This vital resource can add comfort when someone is feeling scared or vulnerable; it can also revitalize us and it acts as a soothing tonic for our nervous system. Care is a powerful motivator; it can inspire us and it can inspire others too. Genuine care is regenerative for both the sender and receiver.

What some may not realize is that the act of caring for someone else interacts with the heart —literally: research at the HeartMath Institute (HMI) found that our physical heart plays a dynamic role in generating positive emotions and creating feelings of elation during acts of caring. J. Andrew Armour, a leading neurocardiologist and member of HMI’s Scientific Advisory Board, found that the heart contains cells that synthesize and release feel-good hormones such as dopamine and norepinephrine.

Caring for others can also be a stress reliever. As we engage in giving of our care we can experience increased feelings of joy as a result of giving to others. Amazingly when we’re caring our oxytocin level goes up, which relieves stress and create the feeling of happiness. It has recently been discovered that the heart produces oxytocin, commonly referred to as the love or bonding hormone – and concentrations of oxytocin can be found in the heart. It gets even better – caring is good for our health in more ways than one. HeartMath research has found that caring, like other positive emotions, increases smoothness in the heart’s rhythmic pattern and improves the health of our heart, immune and hormonal systems.

Caring is a choice; the more we choose to care for others and for ourselves, the more nourished we all become. Our world is going through all kinds of pains right now, so let’s use the power we all have within to increase our focus on where we can add more care.

Let’s care for our families, care for our neighbors, care for our community, care for our global family, care for animals and care for our planet.

We invite you to read more about care and its transformative power, and how to differentiate your care from overcare, in the new book Heart Intelligence: Connecting with the Intuitive Guidance of the Heart.

5 Ideas to Reclaim Your Balance This Summer

Posted on | by HeartMath

These five suggestions will help you use the summer wisely so you can re-balance and recharge!

1: Taking a vacation? Make a “family & friends unplugged” agreement.

Each person promises to only do one or two brief check-ins for urgent work issues that cannot wait. Commit to honesty and be selective about when you really must engage in your routine stuff versus truly unplugging.

2: Be conscious of letting the small stuff go.

Resist spending time worrying about uncontrollable things; be in the moment so you can enjoy more of your time off.

3: Give yourself permission to go with the flow.

Many times the most fun experiences we have come from being completely spontaneous. Try letting go of lists and plans.

4: Remember to include quieter activities to help you reset your balance.

Leisurely walks in the morning or evenings, sitting and listening to the sounds of nature, taking afternoon naps or catching a sunset can all be soothing ways to recharge the body, mind and spirit.

5: Practice managing stress when you’re not stressed.

After all, practicing when things are quieter builds resilience so it is easier to practice when there’s an actual challenge. Add the Inner Balance™ technology to your tablet or phone or pack your emWave2® device. Use some of your down time to practice centering yourself. Both technologies teach you a specialized 2-step technique and provide real-time feedback so you can retrain your mind body reaction to stress. Learning this while you’re less distracted will help you establish a new response that you can carry with you for when things get more hectic.

Summer of Kindness

Posted on | by HeartMath

Recently there was a story that gained viral attention about a young grocery store clerk that took it upon himself to escort an elderly woman across the parking lot so she would have a steady arm to lean on. A bystander was so moved by what he witnessed, he took a picture and shared it on social media expressing how touching it was to see such kindness.

There are a growing number of people that are taking it upon themselves to be ambassadors of kindness. They’re helping to create a heart-based world through their choices and actions. The only requirement to be an ambassador of kindness is to reside on planet earth.

These ambassadors know that kindness matters – every act of it, every kind word spoken and every compassionate and caring thought adds to a world that desperately needs more love.

When we act on behalf of other people, research shows we feel better and experience less stress. This is not just a psychological effect, for example, levels of oxytocin, the so-called love or bonding hormone in the human body, have been found to increase with sincere acts of generosity or altruism. This increase in oxytocin not only makes us feel good, it has also been shown to reduce stress.

Volunteerism, a wonderful way to share your kindness, has received a great deal of focus by researchers, especially in the last decade. The result of volunteerism research has been fairly universal: People who volunteer are more often healthier, happier and live longer than those who don’t.

While anytime is a good time, during these warmer months and longer days, let’s choose to make it a summer of kindness.

Many families have their kids home for several weeks while school is on break. This is an opportune time to plan your own Summer of Kindness. It’s a great theme for the whole family to participate in. Invite the kids to be part of creating a list of kindness activities that they can personally do and some that the whole family can take part in.

If you live alone, invite a few friends to join you in creating a Summer of Kindness. It can be a fun way to spend an evening coming up with ways your group can add more kindness to your local community.

Be creative! Reach out to a senior home and ask how you can help out. Maybe it’s reading to their residents, or if you play an instrument, arranging for a mini concert one afternoon. Consider offering your time to pull weeds for a neighbor that has trouble with this type of physical task. Create a clothing drive for families that have been evacuated from their homes due to natural disasters. Bake up some cookies and drop them by your neighborhood fire station to show your appreciation for your local fire fighters.

There are a million plus ways we can step up and be an ambassador of kindness – it’s all in the doing. Tune into your heart, get inspired and make it a summer of kindness.

With Care, Your Friends at HeartMath

3 Minutes to Recharge Your Resilience

Posted on | by HeartMath

Think of resilience as your inner battery. When our inner battery is charged, we feel better and have more energy and we make better decisions.

One of the easiest ways to build resilience is with a daily 3-minute heart coherence session.

Heart coherence is a physiological high-performance state that has been extensively studied by HeartMath for more than two-decades. When we’re in this coherence state our heart, mind and emotions are in balance so we function better on many levels.

Whether it’s for you personally, or for your family and friends, emWave2® and the Inner Balance™ technologies are a simple proven way you can confidently build resilience. Click here to kick your resilience practice into high gear with one of our technology products!

Watch this short video below to learn why resilience is so important!

2 Steps to Neutralize Emotional Reactions

Posted on | by HeartMath

Wouldn’t it be great if we had an emotion neutralizer that could instantly zap out feelings of anger, irritation and frustration whenever they pop up?

Irritations and annoyances are part of life yet they can contribute to chronic low-grade stress draining away our personal energy and resilience.

If ever there was a secret to neutralizing strong emotions this would be it.

#1 Build Tolerance and Patience.

The emWave2® and Inner Balance™ mobile technologies help us to increase our emotional tolerance and patience. When we are more balanced we’re less likely to react in the first place. These technologies work well to help us increase our resilience reserve so irritants are less likely to cause a reaction. They can also help us return to balance when we do have a reaction that is harder to shake off.

These devices work by providing personalized visual feedback combined with the Quick Coherence® Technique for emotional-refocusing. As we follow the steps of this technique combined with the real-time feedback we learn to create what is called heart-coherence, a psychophysiological state where your mind, emotions and body become more balanced. This method allows us to see, feel and confirm when an emotional shift happens. This takes all the guessing out of it and adds a solid sense of understanding and accomplishment.

#2 Use the Notice and Ease™ tool from HeartMath.

Practice being an observer of your inner responses

Between your emWave2 or Inner Balance practice sessions use this simple Notice and Ease tool to become more attentive to the moment. It can also help to take the intensity out of emotions like irritation, frustration or worry.

  1. Notice and admit what you’re feeling.
  2. Try to name the feeling.
  3. Tell yourself to E-A-S-E as you gently focus in the heart, relax as you breath and e-a-s-e the stress out.
  4. Combining these two approaches can help you to make significant strides in reducing emotional reactions and increasing personal energy. Take your next step to increasing your resilience.

Self-care Isn’t Selfish – It’s Essential for our Resilience

Posted on | by HeartMath

True self-care is an important part of maintaining balance and well-being. People often associate self-care with activities like taking time off, getting a massage, dining out, etc. As we expand our view of true self-care it becomes more inclusive of where and how we invest our personal energy.

Consider these powerful and effective ways we can care for our self and boost our resilience.

#1 Stop Comparing.

Whether it’s on social media, in workplace conversations, or at social gatherings, stop measuring success and happiness based on someone else’s life. When comparing our life to others, we generally don’t get the whole picture anyway. We see what is outwardly presented but we don’t always see the inner struggles, worries, anxieties, or insecurities.

The energy we use to compare with others can be more effectively spent unlocking our heart’s potentials to make our own life better. Comparisons are tempting for all of us but with genuine intention, we can guide ourselves around these energetic sink holes.

#2 Replace self-criticism with a new attitude.

We can be pretty tough on ourselves and as a result we’re unintentionally reinforcing negative thoughts about our self. Applying self-care in this area would be to make sincere effort to catch and replace self-critical thoughts with a positive inner message. Self-criticism can be tricky to change because we can do it so quietly and nobody has to know. However, it’s a habit of self-programming that creates limitation and has cumulative stressful consequences.

The upside is that we can replace these unfulfilling energy drainsas we learn to add the quiet strength of our heart to our intentions. Life feels better as we fade out our criticism of others and ourselves. It’s not the highest reflection of who we really are – and our heart reveals this to us as we learn to listen.

#3 Get quiet and listen.

Making quiet time to connect with our heart’s intelligent guidance and insights increases our effective choices and supplies the resilience for anchoring these choices in our daily routine and interactions.

This practice helps us to listen more deeply to others and can be the difference between truly connecting in our communications – or causing downtime and stress from misunderstandings and mistakes which lead to serious resilience drains and low energy. Taking quiet time to connect with our heart feelings is a source of resilience. Explore this natural gift.

#4 Forgiveness.

It’s worth a reminder that forgiveness benefits us more than anyone else. It is an act of self-care. Letting go of what has happened and moving forward is key to our resilience. It takes energy to maintain a grudge or resentment. A wise person once said holding onto resentments is like allowing someone to live rent-free in your mind.

It’s obvious that some issues will take longer than others so be patient and approach forgiveness from the heart with ease. Remember that forgiving and releasing ourselves from the pain, is high on the list of self-care benefits — mentally, emotionally and physically. Forgiveness is an important step for accessing deeper peace and feeling better.

Increasing the awareness of our mental and emotional expenditures is an important approach towards self-care. As we learn to economize our personal energy we’re also building our resilience reservoir. This allows for more energy to go towards enriching our life experience, deepening our heart connections and cultivating our highest potential.

4 Ways to Reset Your Resilience Starting Today

Posted on | by HeartMath

Resilience is something we develop and need to nurture on a regular basis. Take a few days and focus on one of the traits in this short list. Then do the same with another trait and so on. You can also use this list to inspire and write your own list. The intention is to give focus and time to each trait as a way of nurturing the attributes that keep us resilient.

See the humor in life.

Some people are very good at finding humor in certain circumstances that might otherwise be quite frustrating. Practicing the lighter side can help us to not take ourselves too seriously. Good-natured humor can help us move through stressful moments with a little more ease.

Turn mistakes into lessons, not failures.

To get the most out of a mistake see it as a learning opportunity. Look for what you can take-away from each situation and how it can help you improve yourself.

Move beyond the intimidation.

Choose to move beyond the intimidation of an obstacle. As we learn to draw on our heart’s intuitive intelligence we can refine our skills for navigating difficult situations with increased confidence. Rather than succumbing to a hurdle, use your heart’s intuitive intelligence to find creative solutions.

Keep calm and carry on.

Practice holding the attitude of calm clarity so that you’re ready when situations turn hectic. The ability to manage our emotions and remain calm under pressure is not only an attribute of resilience but also of heart coherence. Learning to create heart coherence facilitates mental clarity and inner calm.

A Super Tool for Keeping Resilient

Posted on | by HeartMath

Resilience is the new skill to have. Resilience helps reduce the emotional and physical effects of time crunch, overload, edginess, financial pressures and unexpected changes. Resilience helps us stay flexible and bounce forward when we are challenged with stressful circumstances.

Research shows that daily stress can have a cumulative effect, which can deplete our reserves of resilience.

When we’re low on resilience, we can tend to add extra drama to a problem which magnifies the situation and creates even more drain. And that’s when we spin out of control, make mistakes, say things we later regret, ignore our health and so on.

A good example of this might be when listening to the news, surfing the web or in a meeting and we hear something that makes us angry or worried. Instead of letting the anger run or projecting fear into the future, imagine if you had a super tool to help take the intensity or steam out of depleting emotions. Now imagine that this simple tool could help you to regain control and perspective so you could sort out your options and choose how you want to respond.The following steps are for HeartMath’s Notice and Ease™ tool and it can help you do just that. Try it tonight when you watch the news, or in that next meeting this afternoon or when you check in on the latest happenings when you’re online later today. Experiment with it and get to know it. It’s a great tool to have as part of your resilience building tool kit.

Notice and admit what you are feeling.

To gain more insight about your emotions, you will need to become more aware of what you are feeling. Noticing and admitting what you are feeling requires slowing down and taking stock. Periodically, throughout the day simply pause and notice how you feel. It takes only a few seconds to ask, “What am I feeling right now?” Don’t judge whatever you are feeling. Instead, observe what’s flowing through your emotions. You’ll discover new things about your emotional patterns and what triggers less desirable emotions in you.

Try to name the feeling.

Simply by naming the feeling to yourself, whatever it is – worry, anxiety, frustration, anger, sadness, hurt, resistance or even a vague disturbance – will help you admit what you are feeling. Being honest about naming what we are feeling helps regulate our emotional energy, slowing down the emotional energy running through our system and giving us more power. We can then redirect emotional energy to work for us instead of having it leave us feeling drained throughout the day.

Tell yourself to e-a-s-e…

As you gently focus in your heart, relax as you breathe and e-a-s-e the stress out. As you tell yourself to ease in your heart, relax and ease the stressful emotion out, feel as if the unwanted emotion is leaving your system. Don’t force it out; ease it out. Befriend the reaction by holding it in your heart, and then let the feeling ease out of your system. If you try to fight your feelings or push them away, they will gain energy. Befriending your feelings will help you clear. Keep using the Notice and Ease tool for one minute or longer, until you feel something lighten up, even if you don’t get an immediate, complete release. Quite often any of us can experience so many feelings within just five minutes. Don’t let this confuse you. Don’t even try to figure out why. Just keep practicing the Notice and Ease tool until your energies come back in balance. Then listen to the intuitive guidance of your heart on what to do next.

5 Ways to Increase Resilience Right Now

Posted on | by HeartMath

An expanded view of true self-care includes how and where we invest our personal energy. Consider increasing awareness in these areas to support your self-care and resilience building efforts.

1: The #1 self-care resilience practice:
Get quiet and recharge.

Making time to connect with our heart intelligence is a very important attribute of resilience and self-care. It helps us reconnect with our authentic self, reset unproductive attitudes, and regenerate our energy reserves by releasing stress. Use the emWave2® or Inner Balance™ technology to help guide you into calm, balanced clarity and renew your energy reserves.

Build more personal energy by adding awareness to these areas:

2: Replace self-criticism with a new attitude.

We can be pretty tough on ourselves. Applying self-care in this area would be making a sincere effort to catch the self-critical thoughts and replace them with a positive inner message.

3: Watch the judgements.

People judge other people. It’s a given. Watching our thoughts can help us become aware of the judgment habit and give us a chance to change the thought. You’ll also be saving energy by reducing drama in your life.

4: Forgive and let it go.

It’s worth a reminder that forgiveness benefits us more than anyone else. It is an act of self-care. Letting go what has happened and moving forward is key to our resilience.

5: Stop Comparing.

Whether it’s on social media, in workplace conversations or at social gatherings, stop measuring success and happiness based on someone else’s life. Put your energy into creating your own life.

3 Tips to Develop More Acceptance

Posted on | by HeartMath

Learning to practice acceptance with the small stuff can help build resilience and establish flexibility as a familiar attitude and approach towards life.

1: Be kinder with yourself.

One of the areas many people have difficulty with is self-acceptance. Whether it’s being judgmental about our body type, our weaknesses or our personality, we’re often our worst critic. One way to start easing up on our self is to be aware of our inner dialogue. Replace negative self-talk with new, positive inner messages, adding a compassionate attitude like you would use with someone you love.

Learn more about holding positive attitudes with our self, including self-care and self-compassion in the new book Heart Intelligence.

2: Ask yourself this important question.

Ask yourself “is thinking about this over and over going to change anything?”. Situations like leaving a laptop at the airport or dropping a cell phone into a water-filled sink can cause us to run a mental loop of unproductive review. How could I do this? Where was my head? It is normal to have some emotional upset, frustration or even self-blame, but after the initial shock, and once we realize what’s done is done, that’s when it’s time to let it go.

Moving into acceptance can help us regroup and start focusing our energy towards a creative, forward moving solution. If you find it difficult to shift the energy away from the mental review, you can use the Quick Coherence® Technique to assist you.

3: Building heart coherence can increase our ability to flex.

With life come inconveniences, like a scheduling mistake at the dentist that leaves us having to reschedule. It can be tempting to assign blame towards someone or something. While the encounter can be frustrating, the quicker we can move towards acceptance the sooner we can resolve the issue. Venting to the clerk usually doesn’t lead to a quick resolution. Instead ask yourself, what can I do to solve the problem or where can I focus my energy more productively?

Exercising acceptance with these kinds of mishaps includes having patience and latitude with others and ourselves. Practices that increase our heart coherence, like those learned from the emWave2® and Inner Balance™ Transformation Systems, can help us increase our emotional flexibility and our ability to handle inconveniences more gracefully.

Use these simple tips and the suggested tools to connect with your heart intelligence and gain a deeper understanding about acceptance and other qualities of resilience.