Matters of the Heart. Part 1
This article suggests a straightforward method to quickly transform both your own world and that of others in ways so far-reaching, that you probably can’t even begin to imagine its profound (potential) transformational effects because of its perceived simplicity.
It’s the simplest thing to do, and it has endless personal benefits for anyone who does it with at least a minimal degree of genuineness.
But before we get to the actual ‘how to,’ let’s first put this whole thing into context.
We say things like:
So in this context, what is this ‘heart’ we keep referring to really?
Let’s explore…
So let’s go over a few interesting facts about the ‘heart:’
We all know how changes in emotions are accompanied by predictable physiological changes in heart rate, blood pressure, and other bodily functions.
Later research has shed light on what has become known as the ‘heart brain,’ a complex and sophisticated nervous system that’s intrinsic to the heart and consists of around 40,000 neurons called ‘sensory neurites.’ With this nervous system of its own, the heart can independently learn, remember, feel, sense, and make functional decisions without involvement from the brain [3, 4].
Another study on the heart revealed that it not only communicates information physically to the brain through the extensive neural pathways mentioned above, but also through electromagnetic field interactions.
According to Rollin McCraty, Director of Research at the Institute of HeartMath, it turns out that the heart’s electromagnetic field is the most powerful and most extensive one in the human body, and about 5,000 times stronger than the electromagnetic field of the brain.
With sensitive measuring equipment called ‘magneto-meters’ it can be detected several feet away from the body, of which the image below gives a schematic impression [5]:
Moreover, today we have concrete evidence of a subtle, yet highly influential electromagnetic or ‘energetic’ communication system that operates just below our conscious awareness.
Research by the Institute of HeartMath has shown remarkable evidence that the heart’s electromagnetic field can transmit information between different people. At the time of writing, such energy exchange has so far been measured between individuals who were standing up to five feet apart.
McCraty proposes that energetic interactions through this field contribute to certain ‘magnetic’ attractions and/or repulsions that may occur between people, and may thus also significantly affect social relationships [6].
It has also become clear that one person’s brain waves can synchronize with another person’s heart. This happened most notably when a person was generating a coherent heart rhythm, suggesting that when our ‘mind / body’-systems are in a harmonious state, we may become more aware of and attuned to the information encoded in the heart fields of those around us.
In addition, the heart turns out to be more than just an organ in other respects too: it appears to operate as an actual endocrine gland that secretes hormones with various important functions.
One of these hormones is called ‘Atrial Natriuretic Factor’ (ANF), which significantly influences our bodies’ blood vessels, kidneys, adrenal glands, and a large number of regulatory regions in the brain.
The heart also contains cells known as ‘Intrinsic Cardiac Adrenergic’ (ICA) cells, which release noradrenaline and dopamine neurotransmitters.
Moreover, it secretes a hormone called oxytocin, which is commonly referred to as the ‘love hormone’ or ‘bonding hormone.’ This hormone is involved in childbirth and lactation, as well as in cognition, tolerance, adaptation, complex sexual and maternal behaviors, the apprehension of social cues, and the establishment of enduring pair bonds.
Furthermore, an interesting fact came out of research by David Vesely, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, molecular pharmacology and physiology at the University of South Florida, as well as chief of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at the James A. Haley VA Hospital in Tampa (at the time of writing).
He discovered that heart hormones were able to get rid of up to 97% of all cancers in cell cultures within 24 hours [7]!
Additionally, the Institute of HeartMath has established that the heart plays a fundamental role in stabilizing and destabilizing emotions, and harmonizing and disharmonizing the interaction between itself, the central nervous system and the brain. When these three systems are out of synch, we ourselves feel completely incoherent (<-- or in scientific jargon: like crap) [8, 9].
Beyond all the above, considerable research has demonstrated that low-vibrational emotional states generate imbalanced heart rhythm patterns. This, in turn, distorts the relationship between the heart, the central nervous system and the brain. As a result, all proverbial hell can break lose mentally, emotionally and even physically.
In fact, this is how stress and other emotions can cause heart attacks, and why people can actually die from a ‘broken heart.’ The emotional impact of a particular traumatic or shocking experience can trigger severely incoherent heart rhythms. This is also what underlies so-called ‘heartache.’
To wit: love, compassion, caring and appreciation have been shown to do the opposite: they actually lead to coherent heart rhythm patterns, of which the graph below gives an impression:
To conclude this enumeration of facts on the heart (at least for the time being), another interesting finding is that the heart is involved in the processing and decoding of intuitive information.
Its electromagnetic field turns out to be directly involved in intuitive perception through its coupling with an energetic information field that resides beyond the boundaries of space and time [10].
And brace yourself for this one:
Other research revealed evidence that both the heart and the brain receive and respond to information about a future event before the event actually happens!
Even more surprisingly, the heart appears to receive this intuitive information before the brain does [11, 12].
That’s why we say “I knew it in my heart” and “follow your heart.” This is where we actually feel ‘intuitive knowing;’ when we intuitively know something, we don’t sit down and think it through. We just know it; it’s there, in an instant.
With this type of knowing, there’s no need to ponder the ‘ifs,’ ‘buts,’ ‘pros,’ ‘cons,’ etc. in an attempt to try and work it all out on an intellectual level – that’s what the mind does with the help of the brain. By contrast, the heart knows instantaneously.
There’s a lot more to be told about the heart, but what we’ve covered clearly illustrates how the human heart is much more than a muscle that merely pumps around blood in the body.
Evidently, it has a huge impact on the overall ‘vibrational state’ of our ‘mind / body’-systems, and influences our health, our ability to tune into our capacity for intuitive knowing, and even our subtle connections with other people and ‘life’ in general. It actually has perceptive and ‘broadcasting’ abilities of its own.
And that brings us to a related area of interest in Part 2…
It’s the simplest thing to do, and it has endless personal benefits for anyone who does it with at least a minimal degree of genuineness.
But before we get to the actual ‘how to,’ let’s first put this whole thing into context.
Matters of the Heart.
by Henk Schram
Let me begin by asking you this:
Part 1 of 3
We say things like:
• “It’s coming from the heart.”
• “A heartfelt thank you!”
• “I love you with all my heart.”
• “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
• “I put my heart into this.”
Or:
• “A heartfelt thank you!”
• “I love you with all my heart.”
• “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
• “I put my heart into this.”
• “It broke my heart…”
• “It’s a real heartache…”
• “It’s a real heartache…”
So in this context, what is this ‘heart’ we keep referring to really?
Let’s explore…
The Human ‘Heart’
The human ‘heart’ is actually very much misunderstood:- Most people see it as nothing more than a muscle that mechanically pumps around blood to circulate it around in the body through all its veins and capillaries.
- Others have a more expansive vision of it, and refer to it as the ‘heart chakra’, which – according to tantric and yogic traditions – is the central ‘spinning wheel’ in a larger system of subtle energy vortexes that permeate the various physical and ‘energetic’ layers of our bodies.
So let’s go over a few interesting facts about the ‘heart:’
In this context, for the longest time it was assumed that it was only the brain that was responsible for the bodily reaction to a certain stimulus by interpreting the environmental incentive and signaling the response it deemed appropriate via the central nervous system.
However, research has shown that the heart actually has its own logic, which often turns out to deviate from the ‘regular’ direction of communication in the central nervous system that goes from the brain to the body.
Later on, neuro-physicists discovered a neural pathway and mechanism through which the heart is able to inhibit and/or facilitate the brain’s electrical activity, and thus influence the way we perceive the world, make decisions, and other cognitive processes that determine how we react in response to environmental cues [2].
Later on, neuro-physicists discovered a neural pathway and mechanism through which the heart is able to inhibit and/or facilitate the brain’s electrical activity, and thus influence the way we perceive the world, make decisions, and other cognitive processes that determine how we react in response to environmental cues [2].
Later research has shed light on what has become known as the ‘heart brain,’ a complex and sophisticated nervous system that’s intrinsic to the heart and consists of around 40,000 neurons called ‘sensory neurites.’ With this nervous system of its own, the heart can independently learn, remember, feel, sense, and make functional decisions without involvement from the brain [3, 4].
Another study on the heart revealed that it not only communicates information physically to the brain through the extensive neural pathways mentioned above, but also through electromagnetic field interactions.
According to Rollin McCraty, Director of Research at the Institute of HeartMath, it turns out that the heart’s electromagnetic field is the most powerful and most extensive one in the human body, and about 5,000 times stronger than the electromagnetic field of the brain.
With sensitive measuring equipment called ‘magneto-meters’ it can be detected several feet away from the body, of which the image below gives a schematic impression [5]:
Moreover, today we have concrete evidence of a subtle, yet highly influential electromagnetic or ‘energetic’ communication system that operates just below our conscious awareness.
Research by the Institute of HeartMath has shown remarkable evidence that the heart’s electromagnetic field can transmit information between different people. At the time of writing, such energy exchange has so far been measured between individuals who were standing up to five feet apart.
McCraty proposes that energetic interactions through this field contribute to certain ‘magnetic’ attractions and/or repulsions that may occur between people, and may thus also significantly affect social relationships [6].
It has also become clear that one person’s brain waves can synchronize with another person’s heart. This happened most notably when a person was generating a coherent heart rhythm, suggesting that when our ‘mind / body’-systems are in a harmonious state, we may become more aware of and attuned to the information encoded in the heart fields of those around us.
In addition, the heart turns out to be more than just an organ in other respects too: it appears to operate as an actual endocrine gland that secretes hormones with various important functions.
One of these hormones is called ‘Atrial Natriuretic Factor’ (ANF), which significantly influences our bodies’ blood vessels, kidneys, adrenal glands, and a large number of regulatory regions in the brain.
The heart also contains cells known as ‘Intrinsic Cardiac Adrenergic’ (ICA) cells, which release noradrenaline and dopamine neurotransmitters.
Moreover, it secretes a hormone called oxytocin, which is commonly referred to as the ‘love hormone’ or ‘bonding hormone.’ This hormone is involved in childbirth and lactation, as well as in cognition, tolerance, adaptation, complex sexual and maternal behaviors, the apprehension of social cues, and the establishment of enduring pair bonds.
Furthermore, an interesting fact came out of research by David Vesely, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, molecular pharmacology and physiology at the University of South Florida, as well as chief of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at the James A. Haley VA Hospital in Tampa (at the time of writing).
He discovered that heart hormones were able to get rid of up to 97% of all cancers in cell cultures within 24 hours [7]!
Additionally, the Institute of HeartMath has established that the heart plays a fundamental role in stabilizing and destabilizing emotions, and harmonizing and disharmonizing the interaction between itself, the central nervous system and the brain. When these three systems are out of synch, we ourselves feel completely incoherent (<-- or in scientific jargon: like crap) [8, 9].
Beyond all the above, considerable research has demonstrated that low-vibrational emotional states generate imbalanced heart rhythm patterns. This, in turn, distorts the relationship between the heart, the central nervous system and the brain. As a result, all proverbial hell can break lose mentally, emotionally and even physically.
In fact, this is how stress and other emotions can cause heart attacks, and why people can actually die from a ‘broken heart.’ The emotional impact of a particular traumatic or shocking experience can trigger severely incoherent heart rhythms. This is also what underlies so-called ‘heartache.’
To wit: love, compassion, caring and appreciation have been shown to do the opposite: they actually lead to coherent heart rhythm patterns, of which the graph below gives an impression:
To conclude this enumeration of facts on the heart (at least for the time being), another interesting finding is that the heart is involved in the processing and decoding of intuitive information.
Its electromagnetic field turns out to be directly involved in intuitive perception through its coupling with an energetic information field that resides beyond the boundaries of space and time [10].
And brace yourself for this one:
Other research revealed evidence that both the heart and the brain receive and respond to information about a future event before the event actually happens!
Even more surprisingly, the heart appears to receive this intuitive information before the brain does [11, 12].
That’s why we say “I knew it in my heart” and “follow your heart.” This is where we actually feel ‘intuitive knowing;’ when we intuitively know something, we don’t sit down and think it through. We just know it; it’s there, in an instant.
With this type of knowing, there’s no need to ponder the ‘ifs,’ ‘buts,’ ‘pros,’ ‘cons,’ etc. in an attempt to try and work it all out on an intellectual level – that’s what the mind does with the help of the brain. By contrast, the heart knows instantaneously.
There’s a lot more to be told about the heart, but what we’ve covered clearly illustrates how the human heart is much more than a muscle that merely pumps around blood in the body.
Evidently, it has a huge impact on the overall ‘vibrational state’ of our ‘mind / body’-systems, and influences our health, our ability to tune into our capacity for intuitive knowing, and even our subtle connections with other people and ‘life’ in general. It actually has perceptive and ‘broadcasting’ abilities of its own.
And that brings us to a related area of interest in Part 2…