A Boy and His Dog—Heart-Rhythm Entrainment

Most all of us have had the experience of walking into a room and feeling immediately uplifted by the positive energy of the people in the room or could sense that although things looked okay something was just not right. There is some type of energetic transfer we picked up on.

Josh and Mabel

Josh & Mabel

The HeartMath Institute has found that a type of heart-rhythm entrainment, or synchronization, can occur in interactions between people and their pets. A lot of pet lovers surely will appreciate the results of an experiment the Institute conducted with a15-year-old boy, Josh and his dog, Mabel. This experiment used electrocardiogram monitors to record heart-rhythm data when Josh and Mabel were together and apart. Two Holter (electrocardiogram) recorders were used, one fitted on Mabel and the other on Josh. The holter recorders were synchronized and Mabel was placed in one of the labs. Josh then entered the room and sat down and proceeded to consciously feel feelings of love towards Mabel. … When Josh entered the room where Mabel was waiting and consciously felt feelings of love and care towards his dog, his heart rhythms became more coherent, and this change appears to have influenced Mabel’s heart rhythms, which then also became more coherent.” If you’ve ever wondered what goes on in your dog’s mind, or heart, when you leave home, this may help: When Josh left the room, Mabel’s heart rhythms became much more chaotic and incoherent, suggesting initial separation anxiety.
Josh and Mabel
The top of the graph shows the dog’s (Mabel) shift when the boy (Josh, shown in the lower part of the graph) used the Heart Lock-In Technique to shift into coherence. There was no physical contact between the dog and boy. Regarding these connections from person to person and between people and pets. Although more research in this area is still to be done, we do feel that we can affect our immediate environment. It appears that there is a type of communication occurring between people above and beyond body language or verbal communication. We believe we’ll see in future research studies that we are affecting each other’s moods and attitudes, both positively and negatively by the electromagnetic fields we radiate. In this work with pets and their owners, we’re seeing that a pet owner can create what we call a heart-filled environment when practicing heart-focused techniques (a cornerstone of HeartMath tools and technology). The pets respond by becoming more affectionate, more animated and more connected with the pet owner. From this research, we can see that as people practice heart coherence, it generates an energetic field that makes it easier for others to connect with their heart — creating social coherence.

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