Softly Speaking

Posted on | by HeartMath

Ever wonder why we shout when we are angry? This story* is one of the best explanations I’ve come across. Enjoy!

A Hindu saint who was visiting the River Ganges to take a bath found a group of family members on the banks, shouting in anger at each other.

He turned to his disciples, smiled and asked, “Why do people shout in anger at each other?”

His disciples thought for a while and one of them said, “Because when we lose our calm we shout.”

“But why should you shout when the other person is just next to you?” asked the saint. “Can you just as well tell him what you have to say in a soft manner?”

When some of the answers did not satisfy the others the saint finally explained, “When two people are angry at each other, their hearts are far apart. To cover that distance they must shout to be able to hear each other. The angrier they are, the louder they will have to shout to hear each other to cover that great distance.”

“What happens when two people fall in love? They don’t shout at each other but talk softly because their hearts are very close. The distance between them is either nonexistent or very small.”

The saint continued, “When they love each other even more, what happens? They do not speak, only whisper and they get even closer to each other in their love. Finally they even need not whisper, they only look at each other and that’s all. That is how close two people are when they love each other.”

He looked at his disciples and said, “So when you argue do not let your hearts get distant. Do not say words that distance each other more, or else there will come a day when the distance is so great that you will not find the path to return.”

* Exerpt From http://www.Spiritual-Short-Stories.com

Take care,
Kim Allen

Justified

Posted on | by HeartMath

What are your excuses for not doing something about your stress?

What IF you don’t have the time? We’re all busy and as long as we believe stress reduction requires time, we continue to reserve it for Saturday morning in the garden or 9:00 pm in the bath tub or late August in Maui! The truth is stress doesn’t wait until you have time to ‘manage’ it. You need something that works 24/7, QUICK! It takes less than a minute to stop the stressful feeling with HeartMath’s basic Quick Coherence® technique: Heart-focused breathing; heart feeling. Five times a day takes less than five minutes!

AND nothing’s going to change anyway. Don’t expect life to suddenly transform around you every time you shift into coherence. Do it for your own sake. Don’t ignore the impact you can have on others when you are more balanced or calm.

YEAH BUT it’s not working. Be patient. Like learning any new skill, this takes practice. And simply thinking about it won’t have the same benefit. You need to focus on and engage the heart; shift how you feel.

Anytime you learn something new, the least line of resistance has the tendency to win out. The time it takes to find an excuse can be better spent to:

Recharge your batteries. Make a shift before you feel stressed. Pause for 15-30 seconds and find something in your life to appreciate. Each time you do this, you boost your whole system.

Have fun with your practice. If you approach your practice too seriously, it will feel like a chore and create even more stress. Find ways to build coherence into your daily routines.

Finally, recognize your stressful feelings one more time today than you did yesterday and then do something about it. Just one extra shift to coherence a day can save wear and tear on your body.

It’s time to get a handle on your stress, once and for all.


Take care,
Kim Allen

A Mother’s Mantra

Posted on | by HeartMath

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned began shortly after my son was born: Let go of expectations. Let go and let him sleep in his own room; let go and let him cross the street to play; let go and let him walk to school; let go and let him choose his clothes, his career, his own path. It’s a life long process and I still have times I have to remind myself, hey, this is not about me, is it?

It’s easy to worry, feel disappointed, be irritated or get annoyed by someone’s actions or choices because they aren’t what we expect or want or what we think we know is right. How easy it is to see others and operate more from our own agenda rather than what is needed or important or best for the other person. And sometimes, when we do get what we want, we discover it wasn’t the best of all possibilities after all.

Whether it’s the actions we expect coworkers to take, the recognition we believe we deserve, or where we want our children to live, we can save a tremendous amount of energy (and stress!) when we accept that people will not always do what we want them to do. This doesn’t mean losing control; rather, it’s acknowledging that we’re not in control and don’t need to be for things to turn out okay.

Lesson learned: Appreciate the unpredictable nature of life. Let go of expectations and view the world around you from a new and more spontaneous perspective. Be more flexible and ready to adapt and respond to whatever may come our way with more intelligence, more creativity and more balance.

Expect only the unexpected!


Take care,
Kim Allen

The Heart – a safe haven for brain injury clients

Posted on | by HeartMath

JasminaA client of mine named Tom, is recovering from a brain injury. His recovery goals include using tools to increase heart coherence as a method to help relieve anxiety as well as sharpen attention, memory and reading comprehension. 

Tom learned to use the Quick Coherence® technique and started to notice that he felt less anxiety and stress in his body and was able to think more clearly.

With brain injuries, people often will feel out of control which can be very unsettling. However, as Tom practiced he started feeling like he had more control over his anxiety and stress even though other aspects of his brain injury deficits were beyond his control. He liked the feeling of being in a calm neutral place. 

To retain the steps of the Quick Coherence® technique Tom needed to say it, write it and read it.  Along with notes in his notebook, Tom posted cue cards around his apartment as another way to remind himself to practice.

It’s clear to me that his efforts are paying off. Tom reported on his second session that his daily practice of going to a neutral place has become a new positive habit.  His anxiety is better, he feels calmer and he’s sleeping deeper.

On our fourth session Tom indicated that he was ready to practice getting coherent on the emWave® Pro. This was a milestone for Tom!! Computer programs can be a challenge for him because of his attention deficit issues. His tenacity is paying off; Tom was able to get 20% high coherence in less than 5 minutes!

Like many people with a brain injury, Tom experiences embarrassment due to his deficits. His concern about being judged has prevented him from communicating with others and getting the help and information he needs. As a result, he often misses out on his favorite outings.

Overcoming another hurdle, Tom recently told me with much excitement, that this time he recognized his feeling of embarrassment and moved past it by going to his neutral place and made a call to get information about a special outing he’s interested in.

Recognizing and shifting the feeling of embarrassment gave him confidence to do it again. He’s become so successful with this that he’s now acting as his own advocate. Tom recently was able to inquire and secured speech and language rehabilitation that he very much needs. 

By my seventh session with Tom, he was able to maintain coherence on the emWave Pro Balloon Game while listening to the music. This is a huge accomplishment and an important indicator that his multi-tasking attention deficit issues are improving.

As I observe him gaining more confidence and more control over his attention deficit issues, I see how this is also a gateway to using coherence to help improve his memory. In subsequent sessions Tom practiced sustaining coherence while hooked up to the emWave Pro and playing memory games with a deck of cards. His ability to think more clearly and make decisions are also improving.

Appreciating himself and his accomplishments has become part of Tom’s daily coherence practice — it helps him to reinforce and continue building on his self -confidence. It is truly inspiring to witness these transformational changes!

Are We Resigned to Stress?

Posted on | by HeartMath

Are We Resigned to Stress?
HeartMath Stress Experts Say We Can Significantly Reduce Our Stress
by Understanding How Our Emotions Work

In the 1950’s a noted researcher named Hans Selye popularized the term stress for the first time. Selye said: “Everyone knows what stress is, but in reality nobody knows.” Today, however, we are learning more about the underlying mechanics of stress as science helps to unravel the mysteries of emotions. HeartMath, a globally recognized authority on the physiology of and relationship between stress and emotions, has spent the last 17 years decoding the underlying mechanics of stress. HeartMath experts say the subtler day-to-day stressors are breeding an attitude of resignation towards stress. Stress can become engrained in our brain’s neural circuitry, forming unhealthy habits that drain us emotionally. HeartMath studies show we can significantly reduce the amount of stress we experience by understanding how our emotions work (www.heartmath.com).

Our accelerated lifestyle has contributed to a mindset that living with daily irritations, anger, frustration, low-grade anxiety, and hopeless feelings is normal. After all, many people you know feel this way. A recent survey conducted by the National Consumers League shows that adults are considerably more stressed now than they were five years ago or even one year ago. Most of us have tried different approaches to dealing with our stress, but find we don’t have the time to stick with it, or maybe we feel a temporary relief but the stress returns soon after. Feeling we’ve run out of options, we tend to defer stress with the mind by talking ourselves into believing that’s just the way life is. Deferring stress is the same as resigning to stress or believing it’s a force we can’t change.

In a recent study conducted by Dr. Jean Twenge of San Diego State University and her colleagues, researchers observed a significant resignation in young people, with many kids feeling like nothing they do matters. The project studied more than 25,000 young people and found a strong increase in cynicism, helplessness and general negativity. Stress affects everyone from young children to adults, and experts are concerned that if we don’t put more emphasis on stress and the core emotional causes, we could be looking at a generation that will progressively develop a crystallized “whatever” attitude towards life.

HeartMath researchers say stress and emotions cannot be separated. Dr. Rollin McCraty, director of research for the Institute of HeartMath, says, “Ongoing low-grade stress can do more harm to the body, mind, and emotions than one large stressful event can. “We’ve studied the physiology of stress in thousands of people of all ages over the last seventeen years. One common factor we’ve observed is that although someone can ‘think’ they’re not stressed or defer it as just an irritation or a low-grade anxiety, the stress reaction has already been triggered. The body is responding more strongly to what the person really feels; the body registers even the subtler everyday irks and frustrations as stress.”

Psychologist Deborah Rozman, Ph.D., founding partner of the HeartMath System and co-author of Transforming Stress: The HeartMath Solution for Relieving Worry, Fatigue, and Tension, says, “The majority of people believe that emotions just happen to them. We haven’t been taught that we can shift out of stressful emotions. But it’s important to understand that stress is accumulated by carrying around unsettled or negative feelings without resolving them. The lack of understanding about how to address our emotions is one of the real causes for today’s stress epidemic.”

Our brain’s neural circuitry is designed to create habits to make it easier to perform tasks without having to think much about them. Each time you repeat a habit, whether an attitude, a behavior, or a repetitive task like driving a car, it becomes more reinforced and automatic. According to HeartMath researchers, the same is true with stress.

The subtler or more mechanical everyday emotional reactions tend to go unnoticed and accumulate. Experts say this eventually this leads to resignation, low-grade anxiety, and low-grade depression.

Dr. Rozman says, “Stress accumulates because we keep storage bins of emotional reactions to people and situations. These storage bins keep us reacting in the same old way over and over. We resign and feel that’s just the way it is, and continue to fill these storage bins with frustrations, hurts and resentments.”

The subtle stressors we tend to ignore are generally everyday occurrences. Dr. McCraty gives this example: “Have you ever received an email from someone you recently had a frustrating conversation with? As soon as you see the sender’s name you experience feelings of dread and irritation. The past experience triggers unresolved feelings about that person. The reason you feel this is because you’ve stored these feelings in your amygdala.”

McCraty explains that the amygdala is an almond-shaped neuro-structure in the brain. It stores emotional memories to help you make instant decisions and cross-references these memories to help you avoid a threat. For instance, if you were bitten by a dog as a child you might feel anxiety in the future when you see another dog. Or if you have accumulated feelings about a certain relative who treats you with disrespect, then each time they call, a feeling of irk gets triggered and you experience that accumulated stress all over again.

One way HeartMath experts say you can stop the negative emotional experiences from accumulating is to learn to track the more subtle emotional reactions. They suggest thinking of the emotions as sound effects. Your outer sound effects, such as sighs, swear words, negative humor, and expressions whispered under your breath can give you clues to the real feelings underneath. Your “inner sonics” like ugh, silent swear words, and feeling that things have “gone south” go on all the time and affect your next thoughts and choices. Many people believe that the mind rules. But HeartMath results show that it’s our emotions that are shaping much of our thinking and, more often than not, determining our choices and behaviors.

Accumulated stress can actually prevent us from finding the creative solutions we need to better deal with stress. Whether an irritation triggered by a relative or co-worker, or low-grade anxiety triggered by current news events, HeartMath’s research shows that stress compromises our cognitive abilities. We can’t think as clearly or as creatively and we have a harder time making decisions.

Becoming more aware of the subtler or more mechanical everyday stressors – and learning to release the stress so it doesn’t accumulate in an emotional storage bin – will go a long way in helping people feel less emotional drain, stress, and anxiety.

HeartMath research has been distilled into simple strategies and learning programs that can significantly help to reduce stress. Fortune 100 companies are using HeartMath’s techniques and technologies to improve employee performance and lower organizational healthcare costs. Hospitals and healthcare organizations around the country are using the techniques and technologies to help employees and patients alike. HeartMath’s corporate and healthcare clients include Cisco Systems, Duke University Health System, Boeing, Liz Claiborne, Shell, Unilever, Ohio Hospital Association, and the Stanford Business School, among others.

One of HeartMath’s award-winning programs is called the emWave® PC Stress Relief System. This patented software program uses a special finger sensor that allows you to see in real-time on your computer monitor how your emotions are affecting you.

The program’s tutorial teaches the user HeartMath’s scientifically validated techniques. HeartMath results show that with even a little practice you’ll quickly learn to recognize the more subtle and mechanical stress reactions and how to transform them into productive and creative energy and solutions.

Altruism: A Remedy for Stress

Posted on | by HeartMath

Will acts of kindness and generosity enhance our health, increase our longevity and make us happier? Can genuine altruism be a remedy for stress? When we act on behalf of other people, research shows we feel better and more secure and experience less stress.

Does altruism have a physiological basis? Using MRI scans, scientists have identified specific regions of the brain that are very active during deeply and compassionate emotions. Stephen Post, Ph.D., head of the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, told WebMD: “This is the care-and-connection part of the brain. States of joy and delight come from giving to others. It doesn’t come from any dry action – where the act is out of duty in the narrowest sense.” What Post is describing is heartfelt giving. Neurochemicals also enter into this picture of altruism. A recent study has identified high levels of the hormone oxytocin in people who are very charitable toward others. But what about the heart?

The Institute of HeartMath, a nonprofit research and education organization in California, has studied the physiology of and relationship between the heart, stress, and emotions for 17 years. Dr. J. Andrew Armour, a leading neurocardiologist on the Institute of HeartMath’s Scientific Advisory Board, has found the heart contains cells that synthesize and release hormones such as epinephrine (adrenaline) and dopamine, among others. More recently it was discovered that the heart also secretes oxytocin, commonly referred to as the “love” or “bonding” hormone. Remarkably, concentrations of oxytocin produced in the heart are as high as those found in the brain. When you are altruistic – lending a helping hand – your oxytocin level goes up, which helps relieve your stress. Altruistic behavior also may trigger the brain’s reward circuitry – the feel-good chemicals such as dopamine and endorphins. However, the hormonal benefits of the good deed depend on the genuine intent of the act of altruism.

Research shows that altruistic people are healthier and live longer. In one study that followed over 400 women for 30 years, researchers found that 52% of those who did not engage in volunteer work experienced a major illness – compared with only 36% of those who did volunteer. In a British poll of volunteers, half of those surveyed said their health had improved over the course of volunteering. One in five even said that volunteering had helped them lose weight. Another large research study found a 44% reduction in early death among those who volunteered – a greater effect than exercising four times a week. And a recent investigation conducted by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research found that older people who are helpful to others reduce their risk of dying by nearly 60% compared to peers who provide neither practical help nor emotional support to relatives, neighbors or friends.

You can learn to cultivate altruism using the HeartMath® System. HeartMath experts say that giving to others should be balanced with self-care so you don’t burn yourself out. Giving is most effective when it comes from a genuine sense of heartfelt care rather than a feeling of duty or “I should.” The heart-focused techniques of the HeartMath System help people to align themselves more fully with their core values and to actualize more care and compassion in their daily lives. Practice of these techniques has also been linked to beneficial changes in hormones that profoundly affect our health, happiness and longevity. Integrating HeartMath practices into your life helps you reduce stress while increasing your generosity from the heart.

Benefits of Altruism:

  • Promotes emotional, physical, mental and spiritual health.
  • Boosts your self-esteem and confidence.
  • Increases your longevity.
  • Givers are more open to receiving gifts and experiencing appreciation.
  • Provides a way to express your feelings about someone or an issue.
  • Builds connections and relationships with others.
  • People gain knowledge about the cause and issue they give to.
  • Giving to a community or globally is caring that uplifts consciousness.

For more scientific information go to: www.heartmath.org.

Five Essential Practices to Safeguard Your Relationship in Tough Times

Posted on | by HeartMath

HeartMath Institute’s Research Sheds Light on the Role of the Heart in Lasting Love

In times like these, when so many people are experiencing such high levels of stress, fear and anxiety, our relationships inevitably suffer, and in some cases, fall apart completely. Yet strong, caring relationships are vital to our mental, emotional and physical health. HeartMath has explored human emotions extensively for the past 17 years, using heart rate variability, or heart rhythm patterns, to measure inner emotional states and stress levels. From this research emerged innovative techniques and technologies that utilize the heart’s powerful rhythms to intercept and manage stressful emotions. This heart-focused approach helps couples to deal more effectively with the increased stress of today and revitalize their heart connection.

Better Communication Comes from the Heart

Research conducted by the HeartMath Institute has shown that negative or stressful emotions lead to chaos in the heart’s rhythms, which has a harmful effect on the rest of the body. Our ability to think clearly and reason is also impaired during heightened stress; our actions become reactive and our decision-making and communication skills are less effective than when we are in a calmer state.

However, this research also shows that positive emotions like care, love and appreciation creates “coherence” in the heart’s rhythms, which is reflected by a smooth and ordered pattern. As the brain and nervous system synchronize to the heart’s coherent rhythm, emotional stress is released. The heart, brain and nervous system are in-sync, working in harmony, and the individual experiences enhanced mental and emotional clarity. In this coherent state the capacity for communicating and making decisions is enhanced, we’re more intuitive and more sensitive.

Psychologist Deborah Rozman, Ph.D. says, “During these difficult times stress can be extreme and communication is vital to keep our relationships strong. Couples can easily learn how to shift their heart rhythms into coherence, to intercept their stress response and reset their emotional physiology. The benefits are more open-heartedness, better communication and enhanced problem-solving abilities – all of which we need right now as we navigate through these challenging times.”

Saving our Marriage

Tammy and Reynir Jonsson were on the brink of divorce. Despite their efforts to save their marriage, the stress of finances, raising teenagers and the pressures at work was destroying it. Their biggest issue was strained communications, as it is with many couples. Tammy and Reynir’s feelings of hurt, judgment, anger and blame that had accumulated over the years made it impossible for them to communicate effectively.

Tammy says, “Reynir was always angry and I always felt hurt and unappreciated. Whenever we’d try to talk it would end in a screaming match. It got to where we felt like not communicating at all because we knew we’d never see eye-to-eye or resolve anything. It would be like, ‘You go to the living room, I’ll go to the bedroom and we just won’t talk.’ This went on for years. We tried everything to fix our marriage but we were at the end of our rope.”

Ray Varlinsky, a licensed California Marriage and Family Therapist, certified Gottman Method Therapist and Gottman Couples Workshop Leader, says, “Many couples don’t know how to use their emotions. Instead, they’re being used by their emotions. Emotions can be a valuable resource for couples if they learn how to use them as a signal and learn to disengage from their distressed negative emotions and work with the information within them.”

Nurture your Heart Connection

Dr. Rozman offers some simple strategies to helps couples get their hearts in-sync.

The Quick Coherence Technique® is a scientifically validated three-step exercise. This deceptively simple technique will help you adjust your heart rhythm patterns into coherence.

Quick Coherence Technique:

  1. Heart Focus: Shift your attention to the area of the heart and breathe slowly and deeply.
  2. Heart Breathing: Keep your focus in the heart by gently breathing – five seconds in and five seconds out – through your heart. Do this two or three times.
  3. Heart Feeling: Activate and sustain a genuine feeling of appreciation or care for someone or something in your life. Focus on the good heart feeling as you continue to breathe through the area of your heart.

Additional practices to help revitalize your relationship:

  • Set a few minutes each evening to connect with your partner. Share about how your day went. Share about your concerns and fears related to work, finances, etc. The act of sharing with someone who cares about you helps to revitalize feelings of being connected.
  • When your partner is talking, practice listening without interruption. Listening from a place of genuine care, even if the issues aren’t resolved yet, can provide tremendous release.
  • Take a few quiet moments before bed to focus on something about your partner, or something they did, that you really appreciate. Feelings of appreciation have been shown to create more heart rhythm coherence. It’s also beneficial for the immune system. Keeping an appreciation journal is also a great practice.
  • During breakfast share with your partner what it was that you really appreciated about them or something that they did that left you feeling cared for.

Varlinsky says, “One of the things I suggest to the couples I work with is to use emWave Personal Stress Reliever (PSR) whenever they feel stressed. Based on the HeartMath Institute’s research, the concept behind this technology is to engage the heart’s powerful rhythms to transform stressful emotions. Whether in session or at home, I ask couples to use the emWave PSR to calm themselves down, self-soothe and reconnect with a positive feeling and with their relationship. From this balanced place, when their heart rhythms are coherent, they can talk about what triggered the feelings that came up and how it made them feel. Because they’re in a coherent state, they’re much more successful at working through the issues that arise.”

Dr. Rozman says, “Stress is a feedback signal that something needs to be adjusted or rebalanced. The good news is that people have much more power over their emotional well-being than they give themselves credit for. They just need a little direction on how to access that power inside themselves to reset their emotions. None of us are immune to stress, but we can choose how we process the stress that is happening around us.”

Case in Point

“All these years we’ve been saying similar things but couldn’t hear each other because of the negative emotions we carried around with us. The emotions would stack and the stress would accumulate and that’s what entered every conversation we would have,” says Tammy. “Now, before a communication we each take a couple minutes to get in coherence. We adjust our heart rhythms, we release the stress, we get our attitudes right and then we communicate. It’s amazing what you hear from the other person when you do this.”

Reynir added, “Before I learned the HeartMath tools I had a very difficult time managing my anger. I didn’t know why I was angry all the time, I just was. Now I’m a lot happier in my life and things are a lot easier to deal with. My interactions with my wife and my kids and in life in general are a lot smoother. Now we can go and do things together we couldn’t do before because we’d be fighting and be angry. I’ve recharged my life, I’m calmer now and I feel much more in control.”

Tammy explains, “Nobody teaches you emotions 101. What we’ve learned to do is so easy, anyone can do it. But if you don’t know what to do you just end up a victim of your emotions. These practices have played a critical role in our communications. I realize now that before we were listening to each other but we never really heard each other.”

Tammy says that in addition to the major improvements in their communications, they’ve also experienced a rekindling of their romance and reignited the passionate sparkle they had when they first started dating. “Reynir sends me sweet text messages and he’ll call me on his lunch hour and say something that just makes my heart flutter. We’ve reopened our hearts to each other and it feels so good.”

Tammy and Reynir say that they’ve also benefited from using HeartMath technology. They use it to help with their communication as well as to prepare for the day ahead. Taking just a couple of minutes to use the emWave to get into coherence before they start their day and again when they get home has significantly reduced the amount of day-to-day stress they experience and greatly enhanced their overall quality of life.

How To Increase Your Resilience Factor

Posted on | by Doc Childre

Are your emotions spinning out of control more often? Do you find that inconveniences, impatience and frustration are getting to you, and you aren’t able to let it all go like you once could? Do you feel tired or drained just thinking about your day and everything you need to get done? If you answered yes to any of these symptoms, it may be due to a lack of emotional resilience.

Are your emotions spinning out of control more often? Do you find that inconveniences, impatience and frustration are getting to you, and you aren’t able to let it all go like you once could? Do you feel tired or drained just thinking about your day and everything you need to get done? If you answered yes to any of these symptoms, it may be due to a lack of emotional resilience.

Think of your emotional resilience capacity like the amount of gas you have in your car. The more you have, the farther you can go. Building a reservoir of emotional resilience gives you the confidence to know you can make it through a potentially stressful situation; it gives you the energy to continue down the road after stress drains you; and it gives you the ability to quickly reset your system to perform in a normal, operational state.

Our resilience depletes when we feel resistant or compressed. For example, think about the resistance you feel when you find yet another major project has landed on your plate. Or your company is laying off 15 percent of your department and you have to pick up the slack. You’re already feeling overloaded. Who wouldn’t feel resistant or compressed?

We don’t know about you, but more and more people we talk to are having multiple health and/or financial problems they never imagined before. To get through these tough times, we all need to build up our resilience capacity.

Building up our resilience capacity is so important because it helps reduce the emotional and physical effects of time crunch, overload, edginess, financial pressures, unexpected changes … you know the list. Research is showing that these standard daily stressors have a cumulative effect that translates into resilience depletion. Plus, when we’re low on resilience, we 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.

In physics, resilience is the property of a material that enables it to bounce back and resume its original shape or position after being bent, stretched, or compressed. (How often do you feel bent, stretched or compressed?) Bamboo trees are wonderful examples of being able to bend without breaking. Bamboo trees go through stress from nature, but they bounce back in a remarkable way. You may have no control over external factors but you can build up your internal resilience to maintain flexibility and balance in your life, like the bamboo tree, as you deal with challenging circumstances.

We all need resilience for optimal health, happiness and reducing stress. Building our emotional resilience capacity involves simple actions that can be easily learned. Here’s one way to stop the drain and start building resilience:

The Power of Neutral

By learning how to activate the Power of Neutral you can prepare for a potentially stressful situation or stop a reaction in the middle of a stressful experience. Think of all the times you’re listening to the news, surfing the web or in a meeting and you hear something that makes you angry or worried. Instead of letting the anger run or projecting fear into the future, you can use the Power of Neutral before and as you watch the news, surf the web or attend a meeting to build your resilience capacity and save all that emotional energy.

Here’s a simple tool to shift into Neutral to build your resilience capacity. It’s a lot like shifting into neutral in a car. Your engine is still running but you get to decide which way to go before you engage the gear again. Shifting into Neutral inside yourself gives you more vision and stops the emotional surge and energy drain so you can maintain resilience as you sort your options and choose how to respond.

  1. Take a time-out, breathing slowly and deeply. Imagine the air entering and leaving through the heart area or the center of your chest.
  2. Focus on your heart and breathing instead of focusing on your stressful thoughts and worried feelings.
  3. Continue until you have neutralized the emotional charge and you feel calmness throughout.

Use Step one as soon as you feel your emotions start to react. First you want to take a time-out by choosing to step back from your emotions. Heart breathing in Step one helps draw the energy out of your head, where negative thoughts and feelings get amped up. Breathe slowly and deeply in a casual way. Imagine the air entering and leaving through the center of your chest and heart area.

In Step two, disengage from your stressful thoughts and feelings as you continue to breathe. Just having the intent to disengage can help you neutralize a lot of your emotional energy.

In Step three, continue the process until you have chilled out and neutralized the emotional charge. This doesn’t mean your anger or anxiety will have totally evaporated. It just means that the charged energy has been taken out and you have stopped the stress play out in your body.

Practicing the Power of Neutral often brings a sense of empowerment, confidence, appreciation and other positive emotions. When you’re experiencing positive emotions more possibilities come into your view. Positive psychology researcher, Dr. Barbara Fredrickson has found that: “Through experiences of positive emotions people transform themselves, becoming more creative, knowledgeable, resilient, socially integrated and healthy individuals.”

Resilience should be at the top of all of our “must-have” lists if we are to effectively deal with today’s time constraints, overload, financial worries, and the unexpected challenges to come. There are many ways to build mental, emotional and physical resilience. This is just one tool to get your started. Practice this resilience tool daily and watch your resilience tank fill.

Reduce the Taxes of Financial Stress: Nine Tips for Relieving Money Worries

Posted on | by HeartMath

For millions of people, financial stress is eating away at their basic sense of security and well-being. And it’s not just bank accounts that are being drained, but also physical and emotional ressenting the people or issues you care about.ources, which in turn impact health, relationships, productivity and happiness.

Note: This article may be reprinted in its entirety. Permission to reprint is contingent on the inclusion of the attribution statement found at the end of this article. The content herein may not be modified or altered without written permission from HeartMath. Please send permission requests to gboehmer@heartmath.com.

Reduce the Taxes of Financial Stress
Nine Tips for Relieving Money Worries

Do you get a knot in your stomach when you sit down to pay the bills each month? Wake up in the middle of the night wondering how you’re ever going to get out of debt? Get a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness when you read headlines about the housing crisis, oil prices, soaring healthcare costs, inflation, recession and unemployment?

If you’re feeling worried and anxious about money, you’re not alone. For millions of people, financial stress is eating away at their basic sense of security and well-being. And it’s not just bank accounts that are being drained, but also physical and emotional resources, which in turn impact health, relationships, productivity and happiness.

Most of us believe if we just work harder, think harder and try harder, we can resolve our financial issues. But what if focusing more brainpower and effort in these problems actually gets us even further away from finding solutions? Instead of trying even harder to think our way through these problems, here’s an alternative approach to consider.

A different method for resolving your challenges involves releasing stress and allowing your intuition to help guide your thoughts and actions. By using tools to stop the continual loop of anxiety and fear, we actually free up energy to find new answers to old problems. Even when we can’t control our external situation, creating a balanced connection between the heart and brain helps reduce the internal taxes of scarcity and insecurity and opens new pathways in the problem-solving process.

Here are nine practical and affordable tips for relieving financial stress:

  • Take advantage of new technology. You may already use a sophisticated computer program to manage your personal and professional finances, but did you know there’s innovative stress reduction software available, too? Much like cell phones, PDA’s and mp3 players make life easier and more enjoyable, there are handheld devices that help you relieve stress. Why not use the latest digital tools to improve your quality of life?
  • Sit down and make a list of what you’re grateful for. It’s hard to feel anxious or scared while focusing on feelings of gratitude. Think about someone you appreciate, then, take a moment in your heart to feel appreciation for them. If you choose to, tell him or her. You’ll be surprised by the new energy you bring back to solving money issues by cultivating gratitude and expressing appreciation.
  • Approach your financial problems more objectively. If you were going to give advice to a person who was in a similar situation, what would it be? Stepping outside yourself enables you to see things more dispassionately, without being as invested in the outcome.
  • Shift your focus. Stop and remember the basic conveniences and luxuries you may take for granted. Much of the world lives in poverty and while it may sound simplistic, when we stop to think about someone much less fortunate, it puts our financial situations in a larger wholeness perspective.
  • Get to the heart of the matter. If you feel like you’re in an endless cycle of worry and angst, try the Cut-Thru® technique to help gradually release the accumulated anxiety caused by financial stress. To gain some immediate relief, you don’t need to sort through all the details of the issues you’re facing; simply address the perceptions, feelings and thoughts that come up while using this technique.
  • Don’t over-saturate yourself with bad news about the economy. While staying informed is important, taking in so much disturbing news day after day can lead to a growing sense of pessimism. Try to watch or read the financial news without getting lost in a negative mindset and look for stories that help stimulate more creative, optimistic thinking about money.
  • Don’t keep everything to yourself. Reach out to a friend who can help you gain a clearer perspective, but not necessarily one who will simply sympathize with your pain. Or find an expert you can talk to about your money issues who is knowledgeable and unbiased. Financial advisors and credit counselors can help take off some of the pressure and there are many free resources for financial advice.
  • Give some money away. It doesn’t matter how much. Whatever the amount, giving to someone in need or to a cause or charity you feel aligned with takes you out of self-centeredness and focuses compassion and caring on someone else. Knowing you have enough to share builds your own sense of personal empowerment.
  • Don’t punish yourself with blame or shame. Having financial difficulties does not equate to failure. Many times the circumstances are beyond your control. Freeing yourself from these disapproving feelings enhances your perception and intuition, allowing you to think better and more clearly. Despite a sense that things may always be this way, your current condition is not permanent. Change is constant and that includes your finances.

While money issues are real, they don’t have to destroy you. Letting go of stress, even for just a few minutes, can lead towards fresh ideas and new solutions. If you’re looking for greater prosperity and peace of mind, reducing stress is a risk-free financial strategy.

Copyright © 2008 HeartMath. Since 1991 HeartMath has been dedicated to decoding the underlying mechanics of stress. HeartMath is internationally recognized for their solutions to transform the stress of change and uncertainty, and bring coherence and renewed energy into people’s lives. Research and clinical studies conducted by HeartMath have examined emotional physiology, heart-brain interactions, and the physiology of learning and performance. Through their research they have demonstrated the critical link between emotions, heart function, and cognitive performance. HeartMath’s work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals such as American Journal of Cardiology, Stress Medicine, and Preventive Cardiology, as well as business journals such as Harvard Business Review and Leadership Excellence. HeartMath’s organizational clients include NASA, BP, Duke University Health System, Stanford Business School, Redken, Kaiser Permanente, Boeing, and Cisco Systems, as well as dozens of school systems and thousands of health professionals around the world. To learn more about HeartMath, go to www.heartmath.com.

Solution for Pain Management

Posted on | by HeartMath

Your Immune System

Pain is the sensation of hurting resulting from an unpleasant or strong discomfort from injury, sickness, disease or functional disorder and is transmitted through the nervous system. More than a physical sensation, pain is our body’s way of defending us from physical harm and further pain by triggering processes that prompt us to seek strategies to protect ourselves and end the experience. Typically, pain is classified as acute or chronic. Acute pain usually is immediate, such as the kind that results from injury, sickness and disease, and then begins subsiding. Chronic pain, described as the disease of pain, serves no apparent biological purpose and can persist for long periods, in some cases years and others indefinitely; frequently it’s resistant to treatment and its cause often is an enigma.

“One in four U.S. adults said they suffered a daylong bout of pain in the month prior to being surveyed, according to a 2006 annual report. One in 10 said the pain lasted a year or more.”
—National Center for Health Statistics

“Pain is a more terrible lord of mankind than even death itself.
—Dr. Albert Schweitzer

Knee Surgery Patient Feels No Pain

The following is a brief summary of an article from Dr. Raymond T. Bradley, who was familiar with HeartMath techniques such as the Heart Lock-In prior to undergoing knee surgery in 2004, and later wrote for the HeartMath Institute.
Dr. Bradley was to have bilateral knee arthroscopic surgery on both legs as an outpatient. To prepare for the surgery, he had visualization sessions with his therapist in conjunction with and complemented by daily Heart Lock-In® sessions in the morning and evening. “My goal was to create a safe and secure place in my mind and heart in which to enter for the surgery – filled only with love (no fear) – and to be able to totally surrender myself to the surgery, whatever the outcome. … My last memory was of total peace and calm and a heart filled with unbounded love and appreciation,” he said, referring to when he was wheeled into the operating room, at which time he did a final Heart Lock-In session. “The surgery went well and I awoke with no side effects: clearheaded, hungry and thirsty, and totally energized and exuberant in spirit. My body felt full only of love and appreciation – I had no pain at all!”

Relieving Stress Relieves Pain

The HeartMath Institute has 16 years of research on the effects stress and emotions have on our health and quality of life. Researchers found that the presence or absence of stress can directly impact levels of pain. For example, in the first two weeks following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, pain-treatment specialists were inundated with complaints of worsening pain. Calls came from patients who suffered from many types of illnesses – cancer, back problems, arthritis, diabetic neuropathy, chronic headaches and others. According to the medical director of pain management at Washington Hospital Center at the time, many patients who had been stable for years on their medication flooded the center with phone calls in those first two weeks after the attacks, saying their pain had gotten out of control. In Houston, specialists reported that pain complaints from cancer patients were up 33 percent, and in Buffalo they had doubled. Why?

“Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.”
—Charlie Chaplin

Endorphins are chemical messengers your body can create to help manage pain naturally. The more endorphins released into your system, the less pain you experience. It is believed there is some endorphin secretion into the body at all times. When endorphin levels fall, particularly during times of stress, aches and pains can increase. When these levels rise – exercising, listening to music or doing something as common and pleasurable as laughing – aches and pains diminish. HeartMath has received many reports over the years from people who say utilizing our scientifically researched and validated tools and technology helped decrease their pain. (Regardless of your circumstance, always consult your physician before changing your pain-management program.)

A HeartMath TIP:

Heart Lock-In® technique: Use the Heart Lock-In technique – an adapted version follows here – especially first thing in the morning, to increase your endorphin level and to give your body an energy boost for the day. Then try it before going to sleep at night to reduce the stress and aches and pains of the day and enjoy restful sleep.
In-depth details and a discussion about HeartMath’s Heart Lock-In technique are available in the book Transforming Anxiety: The HeartMath Solution for Overcoming Fear and Worry and Creating Serenity, by Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman.

  • Shift your attention to the area of your heart and breathe slowly and deeply.
  • Activate and sustain a genuine feeling of appreciation or care for someone or something in your life.
  • Send these feelings of care toward yourself and others. This benefits them and especially helps recharge and balance your system.

Benefits of Reducing Stress

  • Aches and pains decrease
  • Energy increases so you can do more
  • Overall outlook Improves, less focus on pain
  • More restful sleep at night

Tools For Pain Management

emWave® & Inner Balance™: Regular use of this scientifically validated, stress-relief technology has proven to be a vital tool in reducing anxiety, stress, anger, emotional chaos and boosting energy and vitality. The emWave technology is easy to use and noninvasive. It will help you achieve heart coherence – synchronization between the heart and brain – and reach your optimal physical, mental and emotional balance. When your emotions are in balance, you stop the energy drain and start the energy gain. Then, by practicing the easy-to-learn techniques you’ll receive with your emWave only minutes a day will help you revitalize and re-energize your mind, body and spirit anytime, anywhere.
» Learn More

Transforming Depression: The HeartMath® Solution to Feeling Overwhelmed, Sad, and Stressed, by Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman. Depression commonly goes hand in hand with those who suffer chronic pain. Transforming Depression, the fourth book in HeartMath’s Transforming Series, can help you to understand the feelings you are experiencing such as hopelessness and disinterest in activities you formerly enjoyed, among others, and then teach you powerful tools for easing your pain and overcoming those feelings, including Notice and Ease, the Power of Neutral and the Cut-Thru® technique. With a little practice, you can lessen feelings of depression and see dramatic changes occur in your mind and body that can lead to better health and greater peace of mind.
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Transforming Stress: The HeartMath Solution for Relieving Worry, Fatigue and Tension – Childre, Rozman, 2004. Learn more about the warning signs of chronic stress and what you should know about your “intelligent heart” and how it can help you immediately begin reducing the stress in your life. You’ll learn several key HeartMath tools and techniques, including the complete details of the Attitude Breathing® tool and step-by-step instructions on how and when to use it.
» Learn more