Page 5 – HeartMath

How Coherence Technology Activates your Larger Intelligence

Posted on July 15, 2022 | by HeartMath

HeartMath founder Doc Childre created coherence technology to help people activate their larger intelligence. Here are some highlights of what occurs as you use the Inner Balance™ Coherence Plus or emWave^®, to inspire your practice.

Regular daily practice with coherence tech will prepare you for more effective living whether your coherence scores are high or low. Practicing heart rhythm coherence with Inner Balance or emWave coherence technology for even a few minutes has a carryover effect into your next conversation or activity. The carryover effect can facilitate more flow and clarity during day-to-day communications and activities — moving in a state of ease and choosing your actions and reactions rather than mechanically responding in the same old stress-producing ways.
When people have a lot of mental work to do – and most of us do – the practice of using coherence technology can give you a smoother mental ride. Heart rhythm coherence activates higher centers of the brain that enhance compassion and the desire to help others develop their higher potentials.
Getting into HRV coherence for five minutes or more at the start of your day accumulates higher vibrational energy, which translates into more consciousness (and effectiveness) in your interactions and intentions. Look at using coherence technology like a gas tank you are filling as you practice increasing your coherence. Heart rhythm coherence releases neurochemicals that lift your emotional system and help clear your thinking. In higher vibrational energy we have increased capacity to manage our energies, actions, and reactions, and we experience more synchronicities and clearer choices.
Studies have found that with simple regular use of coherence technology, people increase their coherence baseline (the amount of coherence naturally occurring in their heart rhythms when at rest). Raising your coherence baseline can support behavior changes you want to make. As your baseline increases, it benefits your health, wellbeing and happiness, and adds empowerment to your intentions.
Many people who use the emWave, Inner Balance Coherence Plus sensor with the HeartMath app, or the Global Coherence™ app during meditation say that the coherence feedback saves them time and energy because it signals them when they drift or spin out of focus (which we all do at times) and signals them when they’re back. The coherence feedback especially helps them learn to slow their thoughts and emotions into a smooth rhythm, so that their internal systems can operate more in sync. This strengthens the connection with the heart’s intuitive feelings and guidance.
Increasing heart rhythm coherence during meditation helps to align and coordinate thoughts and emotions with your heart’s intuitive guidance, so that mixed agendas or mixed signals don’t scramble the mind. This translates into increased clarity and effectiveness. You can use coherence tech to set an intention then align your heart (feeling) with your visualization or affirmation (thought) to create the highest outcome. As heart energy is added to intention, it aligns you more with the power of your spirit. You add power to your intentions, visualizations, and affirmations. As you activate the coherent power of your heart, it brings your heart, mind and nervous system into alignment to magnetize the highest best to you and your facilitation of others.
As you strengthen your experience of coherent heart feelings, such as love, appreciation, care, compassion, kindness, etc. and breathe them into your system while using coherence tech, you can purposefully imprint them into your intentions for better health, genuine communication, clearer thinking, creativity, anything you want to improve. Practicing this heart-coherent alignment helps clear old negative patterning stored in the cells, releasing more power for creative intention and manifestation from your true self.

To read the full booklet, Understanding Coherence Tech to Activate Your Larger Intelligence:

DOWNLOAD HERE

Social Coherence: Learning to Get Along

Posted on July 12, 2022 | by HeartMath

Excerpted from Heart Intelligence: Connecting with the Heart’s Intuitive Guidance for Effective Choices and Solutions; Chapter 11, Social Coherence: Learning to Get Along, by Howard Martin.

Many researchers are interested these days in under-standing energetic social dynamics.

In their paper Social Baseline Theory: The Role of Social Proximity in Emotion and Economy of Action, Drs. Lane Beckles and James A. Coan from the University of Virginia documented the benefits of emotionally-connected interactions between people.[5] I found one aspect of their work particularly fascinating with regard to the energetic influence we can have on one another’s perceptions.

They wrote: The brain modifies sensory perception in ways that bias decision-making to manage energy use efficiently.[6] For example, wearing a heavy backpack makes distances seem further away and uphill inclines seem steeper.[7] In work by Twedt, Hawkins, and Profitt, hill slants were judged as less steep when participants stood next to a friend.[8] Moreover, this effect was moderated by the duration of the friendship—the longer the friendship, the less steep the hill.

In essence what they are describing is that our perception of walking uphill is different when we are in emotional resonance with someone. The deeper the emotional connection, the less steep the hill appears.

Social coherence enables a “collective intelligence” that helps raise the vibratory rate of the individual‘s and the group’s energetic field.

HeartMath has validated over a period of 30 years a number of effective practices for building coherent teams that we use in our training programs. We have found that the more responsible each team member is for their own energies, the better the principles of coherent teamwork have a chance to really work.

Here are three of our key principles.

Use a coherence technique together at the start of meetings and as needed to reset the team energy for deeper listening and better communication.
Respect differences in opinions, backgrounds, cultures, genders, etc. Use a coherence technique to replace judgmental reactions with compassionate latitude for others and for yourself.
Establish a safe environment to encourage vulnerability, new ideas, admitting mistakes, and openness to questions.

A key practice is for members to deeply listen to each other without judging, which means temporarily setting their point of view aside as they listen.

Creating a Socially-Coherent Society

Heart connection is on the rise because people around the world are yearning for it. They are tired of the old ways of doing things—societal systems that don’t work for everyone, belief systems that focus on separation and polarization, and a host of other paradigms that maintain the status quo.

It’s also true that there are a tremendous amount of competing agendas in today’s world, including political polarization, media misinformation, climate change, racial injustices, viruses, and wars. Human beings keep inflicting pain and trauma on each other. This is nothing new, but with our global communications systems the world’s problems are often on full display. Nevertheless, there is plenty of hopeful news to consider in the midst of the perceived chaos. Many people are sensing that today‘s collective global stir is part of a transition towards a new consciousness based on care, cooperation, and acceptance. It’s a process of a new world birthing itself in the midst of an old one. Awareness is shifting, people are changing, society is transforming, and a new collective intelligence is emerging.

Broadcasting Love

Posted on June 10, 2022 | by HeartMath

Heart coherence does not disesteem the mind; it increases the mind’s potentials for balanced viewpoints which are more inclusive of the whole. Our basic systems (heart, mind, emotions, and body) create more harmony and fulfillment when working in cooperation to shape our lives for the better.

The practice of sitting in heart rhythm coherence for even a few minutes accumulates higher-vibrational energy that has a carryover effect through our day; it provides more clarity and ability to access flow. This often draws creative solutions where there seem to be none. In a coherent vibration we draw more synchronicities and clearer choices, along with heightened heart textures of love in our life’s interactions. We don’t have to be perfect without challenges to maintain a coherent life expression. It simply requires general maintenance, like any practice that helps to steer our decisions and behaviors.

Scientific research is showing that as people practice heart coherence, it generates an energetic field that makes it easier for others to connect with their heart— leading to greater understanding of each other and social coherence. It’s our individual job to become responsible for our own energy which raises the vibration of the collective energy field, making it easier for others to access their higher potentials and increased joy.

Exercises to Expand Our Capacity to Love

• Make a commitment to consciously broadcast or radiate love for a minute or two in between and during activities during the day or whenever you think of it. Realize that you are especially radiating love when you’re feeling appreciation and kindness, resonance with nature, warm-hearted care for family, friends, pets, etc.

• Practice breathing love and caring feelings into the environment wherever you are: shopping, on the phone, at the dinner table, watching the news, in meetings, while driving or walking to work, etc. As you do this, know that it’s helping to increase your capacity for finding solutions to life’s challenges.

• Sit for a while in relaxed stillness and imagine breathing love and healthy thoughts into all your cells. This enhances your immune, hormonal, and nervous systems which can help with self-healing. Remember it’s been proven in respected studies that love energy can effect positive changes in biology.

• Practice radiating love and latitude into future meetings or interactions you’re planning. This sets a tone for deeper listening from your heart and helps you maintain or recoup emotional poise if needed.

What Do You Do When You Wake Up Grumpy?

Posted on May 23, 2022 | by HeartMath

What Do You Do When…

What do you do when you wake up and, for no apparent reason, you feel out of sorts, grumpy, low energy, anxious, and just not connected to your heart in general?

What Is This?

You’ve been having a good week and now feel this way.

You start to try to figure it out. What is going wrong? What’s wrong with me?

Why Now?

You can take a look at events, interactions, and so on that may have contributed to your low-feeling world.

But you can also try to see it in a new way.

You’re experiencing a “modulation day.”

Life has rhythms—highs, lows, going in and out. (Life modulates.)

Sometimes our emotions do the same thing. Our emotions modulate too, and it’s natural that you won’t feel as connected to the rejuvenating feelings of the heart on days like this.

Here’s What You Can Do

Perhaps do a short, heart-focused exercise.

Just breathe a feeling of ease in and out through your heart area.
Then add the feeling of self-compassion.

If you can, see yourself as a good person doing the best you can. If you can’t feel ease or self-compassion, it’s okay. Your efforts will pay off soon enough.

During your day, take little moments in between activities and, again, just try to connect with a feeling of ease and self-compassion.

Also, try to show some extra kindness or appreciation for others. This can help get the emotional qualities of the heart flowing more easily.

Don’t look for immediate results. Have patience with the process. And try not to make whatever you’re feeling feel overly significant. In due time, you’ll start to feel more like your best self.

Remember, it’s just a modulation day and no big deal.

Life has a rhythm and flow to it. With a little meaningfulness, you can learn to make peace with modulation days and use them to further your inner growth.

Watch on YouTube

The HeartMath Experience

Science is discovering the major role that the heart plays in how well our brain functions, and understanding that this connection is not only about physical health – it affects the quality of life, relationships, perceptions and mental habits and self-limitations. Research shows we can intentionally influence this connection to improve our mental, emotional and physical well-being. Get free access now to an online video program (Videos captioned in twelve languages – with 9 chapters) that explains the connection and gives you tools to strengthen and optimize this connection.

Get Free Course

Cultivating Inner Stillness

Posted on May 6, 2022 | by HeartMath

It’s highly effective to schedule times for practice of inner stillness to allow our heart, mind, and emotions to experience a relaxed time-out from competing over the choices we make. Stillness softens our determined mental and emotional traffic so that our heart-speak can be heard. This requires practice because the mind will try to occupy any available space if the door is left cracked. However, if stillness practices didn’t produce high-value results, think of all the centuries of time that meditators and spiritually conscious people would have wasted throughout history. With fine-tuning, inner stillness becomes like a personal elevator to our highest view and eliminates the weariness from climbing endless stairs. I feel that practicing inner stillness will become a most positive corner-turning step forward for humanity, not as a trend or religious motivation but as a street-sense way of life. You can try this inner stillness exercise that I found valuable for deepening my connection to my heart’s intelligent guidance.

Inner Stillness Exercise:

Step 1: As you breathe quietly, imagine your breath calmly slowing down the vibration of your mental and emotional energy. Stay with it and don’t care if your mind disrupts you. This will improve with patience and practice. To get benefits out of this stillness exercise, you don’t have to totally stop the mind—even reducing thoughts and calming yourself improves your capacity to sense your heart feelings and suggestions. In a short amount of time, the power to quieten your mind will increase.

Step 2: As you feel your energy calming, genuinely radiate love to something or someone you care about. This connects you with your heart energy.

Step 3: While maintaining your state of calmness, ask your heart for guidance, solutions, or deeper understanding regarding life issues you are experiencing.

Step 4: Imagine stillness as a peaceful place where you are taking a time-out. As thoughts come up, don’t push against them. Casually refocus on breathing love and peace into the stillness. Our higher choices become more obvious as we increase our capacity to listen in stillness to our heart’s intelligent guidance.

Note: When you’re listening for intuition, don’t expect a Siri or an Alexa-type attendant on the other end with a download of answers. Especially on complex issues, intuitive feeling answers often come later—through something someone says, something you read, while you’re in the shower, driving down the road, etc.

Special Care Focus – Collective Compassion for Ukraine

Posted on March 21, 2022 | by HeartMath

Collective Compassion for Ukraine

There has been a global outpouring of collective compassion since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war for all the people who are suffering, have lost loved ones, lost their homes, and had their whole lives displaced.

Many people around the world watching the news are experiencing heightened fear, insecurity, outrage, and feelings of powerlessness. Many are calling from their minds and hearts to please Stop this War! “War is outmoded,” said the Dalai Lama, and most all of us feel that in the core of our hearts.

Across the planet, people are experiencing stress overload from their emotional responses to the atrocities. This is understandable. However, for your own wellbeing, occasionally take a time out somewhere and breathe the feeling of balance and calm from your spirit for a while. Envision this renewing your mental, emotional and physical nature. Doing this from the heart can restore resilience and help with the stress.

Let’s also keep increasing our care and compassion for each other and for ourselves. In whatever way we choose to send compassionate care, it’s important to keep the continuity of our collective compassion going out to all people affected by this war. Do this as you can, according to your life’s circumstances. All love counts, even if we can’t always see the ways that it helps.

Care Focus Collective Compassion for Ukraine

Start with quiet breathing while radiating feelings of love and care for someone, a pet, nature, etc. This helps open and warm the heart which increases the effectiveness of the Care Focus.
Now, let’s send our deepest care and compassion to people directly affected by the Russia-Ukraine war. This includes the people of Ukraine, soldiers and refugees, many people in Russia who are saddened with pain in their hearts regarding the invasion, and many others throughout the planet.
Next, send compassion and gratitude to the people and countries taking in millions of refugees. Send heart that those who support this war might open their hearts to the pain the war is causing and realize the setback it is inflicting on nations, much less the world community.
Now, see our deep heart’s care contributing to a global heart awakening of collective compassion that’s on the rise as a result of this war.
Let’s close by envisioning that humanity will realize that war is a thing of the past and that we need to come together in the heart to work things out.

It is effective to continue doing this Care Focus or individual steps of it after the full moon period, if convenient. The planet is calling for continuity of collective compassion going out to all people affected by this war.

Adapted with permission. Originally published by the HeartMath Institute for the Global Coherence Initiative Care Focus.

Unconditional love and compassion are among the highest vibrations of love

Posted on February 22, 2022 | by HeartMath

Article updated February 2022, originally published, August, 2017

HeartMath and many systems use the term vibration in reference to the quality of attitudes, thoughts, feelings and emotions that are generated and influenced by our beliefs, memories, choices, environmental stimuli and more.

For example, you often hear people say, “I had to leave that office, the vibes were so low it was draining my energy, or, “I felt a lift from being in her positive vibration.”

The vibration of our moods, attitudes, thoughts and feelings can rise and fall throughout the day based on our actions and reactions to others, ourselves, or to life’s issues. The vibes we put out vary based on our resilience for balancing our mind, emotions and disposition – especially in today’s dynamic emotional climate.

Part of being human means from time to time we’ll feel lower-level vibrations like being frustrated, angry, disappointed, or sad. But we can also shift out of these debilitating feelings and lift our attitudes and perceptions.

Feelings like care, compassion, kindness, inner ease, patience and gratitude lift our vibration. Anyone who experiences these qualities knows their power to shift our outlook.

Most all of us feel more self-secure when our vibes are up, yet maintaining this in the midst of challenges and stress can sometimes be tough. The good news is that we can learn to lift our vibration to meet challenges by adding more care, kindness and compassion in our interactions. Being in a lower vibration isn’t bad, it’s just that we feel better and are more effective when our spirits are lifted.

Many of us have personally experienced the benefits of compassion – and increasingly more and more people are resonating with this powerful expression of love especially in these times of robust change. Practicing compassion is something we can all do that benefits everyone.

Try these two simple exercises to lift your vibration when your feelings are down.

Find a quiet place where, for a few minutes, you can breathe easily, imagining with each breath that your mind, emotions and body are becoming still inside. In this stillness, desire the uplifting feeling you would like to have, and as you breathe, imagine breathing this new feeling into your being for a while. Imagine you are creating it with your breath.

Find a quiet place where, for a few minutes, you can breathe easily, imagining with each breath that your mind, emotions and body are becoming still inside. In this stillness, desire the uplifting feeling you would like to have, and as you breathe, imagine breathing this new feeling into your being for a while. Imagine you are creating it with your breath.
If you’re feeling low, try sitting quietly and imagine radiating love, compassion and stillness into your mental and emotional nature. Self-care is often allowing ourselves to have a low moment without compounding it with self-criticism.

When our light is dim, it helps to give ourselves the feeling of compassionate heart warmth. Even if it doesn’t stop the pain, we know it can help energetically.

You can soon feel a difference when doing these exercises, unless extremely challenged. If it doesn’t work the first time, be patient and simply try again later. Being genuine makes the difference. Practicing for a few days in a row strengthens your capacity to reset unwanted thoughts, feelings and attitudes.

Simple exercises such as these can lift your happiness and outlook more than you may think. Make it fun to consciously raise the vibration of your thoughts and feelings throughout the day to match who you are in your heart of hearts. Watch your spirit lift and the stress accumulation diminish.

These practices especially help to open our heart more in our interactions, which is often the missing piece in our pursuit for peace.

Love matters.

These exercises have been adapted with the author’s permission for this article. Read the full exercises and other helpful suggestions, in the book, Heart Intelligence: Connecting with the Heart’s Intuitive Guidance for Effective Choices and Solutions.

Adapted with permission from the HeartMath Institute.

Releasing Separation

Posted on October 15, 2021 | by HeartMath

Releasing Separation

How to Get Along with Each Other

The polarizing political environment is waking up more people to the realization that it’s time we decide to get along with each other. Our prejudices and biases are coming to the surface to be addressed from the intelligence of the heart. The heart reveals our common humanity and can see new opportunities for creativity in diversity if we embrace it. It’s time for inclusive care, respect, and cooperation to be practiced past the limitations of our personal viewpoints and preferences. This can change the course of many unfavorable events in our personal and collective lives.

Our heart’s intelligent guidance can help clear our biases that block our tolerance for each other’s differences. Most of us feel a desire for more harmonious and cooperative interactions, but we have to step into it with our heart’s intention to release habits of separation. It is possible to integrate care, kindness, and compassionate latitude into our daily interactions yet allow for our differences without creating separation. We’ve tried everything else to get along with each other except using our heart’s intuitive guidance and care. More people are realizing this is the missing piece in our interactions and in our quest for solutions.

We can each make a conscious practice to release our habits of separation. It’s beneficial to ask your heart where you’re being too judgmental with people or keeping them at arm’s length with separation or bias. This could be an individual, group, religion, race, etc. Practice sending or radiating from your heart the feelings of acceptance, compassion, and forgiveness to help release separation and judgment. Radiating these heart feelings has a cumulative effect that can facilitate families, workplaces, and communities to open their hearts more and listen respectfully to each other’s views.

It’s getting more obvious that the more we shut off our hearts to each other, the worse a situation gets. We’ve seen this in families, personal relationships, and between nations. Life is calling (shouting) for a change. The effectiveness of collective heart power is still in its early stages—yet it’s on the rise due to the increase of stress, anxiety and depression, and a desperate need for solutions that the mind, without the heart, can’t deliver. As the heart, mind, and emotions resonate in coherent alignment, this allows more spirit and heart energy to move through individual and collective intentions. From there, co-creative solutions have a chance to emerge. Let’s start with our own care and compassion to make things better.

Releasing Separation: A Heart Meditation

HeartMath · Releasing Separation Meditation

Download Audio File

Center yourself in the heart, and breathe appreciation to warm your heart and increase your focus.
Connect with your heart’s intention to create more feelings of acceptance, compassion, and care in your interactions with others and within yourself.
Consciously practice these feelings and attitudes for a week or so, and they will increasingly become automatic at times. This can progressively increase your emotional stability and resilience. It can also do much for preventing and decreasing stress accumulation.
Let’s visualize our collective heart energy helping to stabilize chaotic emotional energies that feed separations and biases within individuals and leaders and block effective solutions that are best for the whole.
Now envision enough people opening their hearts and setting aside their differences to create a more heart-based world. As hearts open more, there is a natural inner prompting to create ways to get along with each other, cooperate, and co-create solutions for the benefit of all. That’s who we are at the core.
Let’s close by radiating our compassionate care to all who are suffering hardships during the present global challenges.

Adapted with permission. Originally published by the HeartMath Institute for the Global Coherence Initiative Care Focus.

Increasing Resilience Enhances Decision Making

Posted on October 1, 2021 | by HeartMath

The dictionary describes a decision as “the act of reaching a conclusion or making up one’s mind.” According to new scientific research, this is only part of the story. One of the most intriguing findings in recent research is that one’s feelings are involved in the process of making decisions as much as, or even more than, one’s mind.

When we’re balanced and coherent, our minds become far more effective, sharp, and clear. It boils down to this: when we’re stressed, we lose our emotional balance and are prone to making poor decisions. When we’re emotionally coherent and balanced, we’re poised to make better decisions that will help serve us and everyone concerned.

The Freeze Frame technique was designed to clear the mind in order to make the best decisions. Here are the steps:

The Freeze Frame^® Technique:

1: Acknowledge the problem

Acknowledge the problem or issue and any attitudes or feelings about it.

2: Focus your attention in the area of the heart.

Focus your attention in the area of the heart. Imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or chest area, breathing a little slower and deeper than usual.

Suggestion: Inhale 5 seconds, exhale 5 seconds (or whatever rhythm is comfortable)

3: Make a sincere attempt to experience a regenerative feeling

Make a sincere attempt to experience a regenerative feeling such as appreciation or care for someone or something in your life.

4: Ask yourself…

From this more objective place, ask yourself what would be a more efficient or effective attitude, action or solution.

5: Quietly observe any subtle changes

Quietly observe any subtle changes in perceptions, attitudes or feelings. Commit to sustaining beneficial attitude shifts and acting on new insights.

Quick Steps:

Acknowledge
Heart-Focused Breathing
Activate a positive or renewing feeling
Ask
Observe and Act

Hopefully you’ve gotten a better sense of what the decision needs to be. You may not have a crystal clear answer but perhaps you feel calmer and less stressed about this decision. If you didn’t get more clarity, or you’re unsure of what your heart is saying, go through the steps again.

Solution for Overcoming Sleeplessness

Posted on September 30, 2021 | by HeartMath

Updated article. Original published February, 2014

Guided Meditation for a Better Night’s Sleep

Try this 3 minute guided heart mediation led by HeartMath’s Howard Martin, to help you shift from stress and prepare for a great night’s sleep.

HeartMath · Sleep Meditation

Download Audio File

If you struggle to fall asleep or wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep, and this persists for a few days, a few weeks or longer, you suffer from sleeplessness, a serious disorder that robs your body of the rest it requires to re-energize you physically, mentally and emotionally.

Up to 90% of all health problems are related to stress. Additionally, a large body of research confirms our thoughts and emotions have a dynamic effect on our health and vitality.”
The American Institute of Stress

A typical form of sleeplessness also referred to as insomnia, occurs when you wake up during the night, realize you are wide-awake when you should be sleeping and then become anxious. The anxiety causes adrenaline to flood the system and adrenaline prompts the body into action – the opposite of what you need for effective sleep.

If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. Sleeplessness affects all age groups. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that about 60 million Americans suffer from insomnia each year. The National Sleep Foundation reports that disordered sleep – difficulty falling asleep, light sleep or nonrestorative sleep for several nights or more weekly – affects nearly two-thirds of American adults at some point. It’s believed that sleeplessness increases as we grow older. More than half of older Americans have trouble sleeping and think it’s a part of aging. It’s not.

Sleep problems in the elderly are not a normal part of aging

Dr. Julie Gammack, assistant professor of geriatrics at Saint Louis University.

Inadequate sleep adds to an increased risk of accidents, falls, and chronic fatigue. Our children and teens, too, are having trouble sleeping.

Difficulty falling asleep is the most common complaint among adolescents. In a national survey on the sleep patterns of U.S. adolescents ages 11-17, the Sleep in America poll by the National Sleep Foundation found only 20% of adolescents were getting the recommended nine hours of sleep on school nights and 45% slept less than eight hours.

What’s Causing Your Sleeplessness?

Stress is a leading cause of abnormal sleep patterns. Research shows it is a common trigger for both short-term and chronic insomnia. Stress can result from health concerns, depression and anxiety among other things, but perhaps the most insidious cause is the fast-paced world in which we live. Technology, world events and our ever-increasing knowledge about our world and the universe seem to have put time on a relentless treadmill and keeping up can wear out even the most determined among us. Scientific research by the HeartMath Institute shows stress creates incoherence in our heart rhythms, and when the heart is out of sync normal sleep patterns can be interrupted.

3 Tips to Reset Your Body’s Rhythm

It’s time to try a system reset so you can return to a healthy sleep rhythm. But first some abbreviated science.

Our heart beats in a rhythm. Research at the HeartMath Institute found that when we are over-stimulated, overwhelmed, stressed or worried this rhythm becomes irregular and incoherent.

Conversely, positive feelings, like love, care or appreciation can smooth out our heart rhythm into a harmonious coherent pattern and help prepare the body for sleep.

Reset with these three practical solutions:

Plant the seeds for good sleep with the Quick Coherence^® Technique

Sleep practices need to include what happens during the day not just once the sun goes down. Doing a few 1-2 minute Quick Coherence^® Technique sessions during the day can minimize the build-up of stress. Accumulated stress is a common cause of disrupted sleep patterns.

Once in bed, practice Attitude Breathing™

Close your eyes and tell yourself you aren’t going to over-dramatize anything that happened during the day or any concerns you may have about sleeping. Use the heart-focused technique we call Attitude Breathing™ to create a coherent heart rhythm that can facilitate deeper and more effective sleep:

Steps for Attitude Breathing

Recognize a feeling or attitude that you want to change and identify a replacement attitude.
Focus your attention in the area of the heart. Imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or chest area, breathing a little slower and deeper than usual.
Suggestion: Inhale 5 seconds, exhale 5 seconds (or whatever rhythm is comfortable)
Breathe the feeling of the new attitude slowly and casually through your heart area.

Practice the this exercise for a few minutes. Coherent heart rhythms help release beneficial hormones that reduce stress and restore your system.

Technology can help

Take out the mental figuring and use HeartMath’s emWave2^® or Inner Balance^™ technologies. Use these tech assistants combined with the above techniques to simplify the process as they guide you into a peaceful rhythm of heart coherence.

HeartMath techniques are demonstrated to provide powerful stress-reduction benefits in carefully designed scientific studies that are supported by a documented reduction in damaging stress hormones.

Paul Rosch, President, The American Institute of Stress

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