When it comes to life, we often get in our heads and try to piece things together, but often forget the heart of the matter. What does the heart have to do with happiness, success, and living a meaningful life? In this piece, you’re invited to join me in exploring the science of the heart and how you can use it to live a more fulfilling life. 

The Heart is More Than a Blood Pump! 

The first thing to say is, the heart is a brain! It has roughly 40’000 neurons within it, and that’s not all, the state of your heart plays a key role in decision making, creativity, emotional regulation, the quality of our attention, and even the ‘vibe’ or ‘energy’ we project into a space — the heart emits a magnetic field that can be measured from several feet away! 

One of the key metrics used to measure the state of the heart, is Heart Rate Variability (HRV). A heart’s HRV is its ability to flexibility alter its rate of beating from moment to moment; people with lower HRV are more likely to be experience chronic stress, anxiety, heart and other organ diseases, as well as suffer from emotional dysregulation, and fatigue. 

Notice a peculiar correlation: it is often the most rigid, tense, judgemental and stressed people by character who will have lower HRV, that is lower physical responsiveness and flexibility of the heart. An interesting parallel between the body and the mind; the mental and the physical. 

The heart has a big role to play then in so many areas of our lives. It’s intertwined with our health, work, relationships, wellbeing, and even how centered and present we are in the day. 

The Heart is a Centre of Intelligence and an Interconnector

The heart is also a centre of intelligence, one that is especially particular to matters of relating, wellbeing, choice, and identity. This is reflected in colloquial sayings like ‘listen to your heart’, ‘let’s get to the heart of the matter’, or when we have a heart to heart, a change of heart, or are being light-hearted for example. 

In many societies, we’re living from the neck-up, which leads us to suffer disconnects with our hearts and our guts. One virus related to this, is the rife one of over-thinking, which clouds out our connection to these other two intelligences. 

Going back to the research, we can induce states where our heart is in a coherent state and has a high HRV, which creates improvements in all sorts of things: 

• How well we can regulate our emotions and the quality of our emotional experience more broadly (calm heart = calm mind). 
• Make better decisions and be more in touch with our intuition.
• Improve our ability to focus, endure stress, learn, and pay attention.
• Enhanced balance and regulation of our nervous system, hormones, blood sugar control, and immune system functioning.
• Improved reaction times, test performance, and access to higher-order thinking, creativity, and problem solving abilities.

Now, we’ll turn to the practicalities of inducing heart coherence and a higher HRV from both a spiritual and scientific perspective. 

The Heart and Healing From a Scientific and Spiritual Perspective

Photo by Jay Castor on Unsplash

Science and spirituality both offer relevant and complementary tools and perspectives for cultivating a healthy and wise heart. 

The science behind it has already been covered in some detail, so let’s dive right into the tools, starting with a more scientific approach. 

One toolkit comes from the HeartMath Institute, a non-profit organisation setup in 1991 to research the heart, its role in our lives, and how we can practically work with it for the betterment of humanity. From a scientific perspective, we’re focusing a bit more on physiology rather than energies and mind here. 

Here are three tools from the heartmath institute that you can use: 

1) HeartMath’s Quick Coherence Technique (quick and simple) 

In this exercise, we follow these simple steps to activate heart coherence and a higher HRV: 

1. Get in a comfortable and relaxed position
2. Turn your attention to your heart area; your upper chest
3. Start breathing slowly and deeply to the count of 5–8 seconds per breath, pick a rate that suits you. Do this for a couple of minutes ahead of the next step. 
4. Now, recall a moment of love, appreciate, or gratitude and be with that memory as you continue to breathe; you can continue for as long as you like. The whole practice can go on for a few minutes, or go to 15/30 minutes. 

What’s nice about HeartMath’s quick coherence technique is that it can be done almost anywhere really and in a small timeframe. Pretty handy! 

2) HeartMath’s Heart Lock-In Technique

This technique is more geared to sustainably building a coherent heart with a high HRV over time; making it a habit of being. 

1. Focus on your heart and breath in slowly and deeply, like in the quick coherence technique. 
2. Again, create a sustained, positive feeling through recalling a memory that brings you gratitude, appreciation, and/or joy. 
3. Now, visualise this positive energy coming from your heart and radiating out to your whole body, your environment, and other people in your community and in your life. 
4. Sustain this for a total of 5–15 minutes, and then you’re done! 

As a note, we often talk of habits of doing, but more fundamental than these habits, are habits of being; our day-to-day state. Building healthy, loving, and balanced habits of being can prove to have life-altering effects. 

3) HeartMath’s Freeze-Frame Technique (Best for Stressful Situations) 

Sometimes things get a little tough, so this freeze-frame technique can be helpful to remember and apply in those more turbulent times: 

1. When you notice you’re stressed, pause/freeze-frame the situation in your mind, and then shift your focus over to your heart. 
2. Breathe deeply and slowly for a minute or two if possible, and then start replaying the situation, but from a neutral perspective. 
3. Ask yourself about the situation: ‘what is the most effective way to respond to this?’ and allow yourself space for an intuitive answer.
4. Wait for an intuitive response to arise: it will likely carry a calm, insightful, fresh, and considerate quality to it. 

An interesting insight about this practice, is that how we respond to a situation is closely link to our state and mindset at the time. This freeze-frame technique helps us to get back to a deeper, more balanced, and harmonious perspective that can better serve us and others! 

Spiritual Tools and Perspectives on the Heart and Healing

Here, I would like to ground the spiritual perspective on the heart in terms of chakras. But before that, some context; we can ask, what is the spiritual significance of the heart across different religions and traditions? These quotes can offer some pointers: 

• “There is a piece of flesh in the body; if it is sound, the whole body is sound. If it is corrupt, the whole body is corrupt. Truly, it is the heart.” the Prophet Muhammed
• “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” —  Jesus (Matthew 5:8) 
• “Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction.” — Rumi, Sufi Poet
• “In the center of the heart, there is a little shrine. Within it dwells the vast universe.” —  the Chandogya Upanishad 8.1.1
• “Where there is love and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance.” — Saint Francis of Assisi

Various religious traditions converge on the significance of the heart as the gateway and portal to peace, wisdom, connection, health, and direction. Going back to the scientific evidence, its interesting how it correlates with words that were spoken thousands of years ago. 

The difference then between science and spiritually, both generally and here, is that one is an external science, and the other is internal. Both carry shared principles for knowledge and influencing reality, such as open-mindedness, investigation, testing and practice, as well as sharing and verifying data and experiences. 

Turning to the internal science that spirituality offers, when one gets in touch with their heart and body more broadly, they will notice that their body has a number of subtle energies working across it. Sometimes they are coarse, solid, frozen and tense in quality, and othertimes, there is warmth, flow, and lightness. In turn, these subtle feeling-states correspond to states of mind and behaviour. 

Now, let’s talk about chakras! Chakras are subtle energy centres running up from the base of the spine up to the crown of our head and a little beyond. Colloquially, there are seven chakras, and the heart centre, or anahata, is one of them. Each chakra serves a particular role in our subtle system. 

The heart chakra, as the quotes reflect, is known as the chakra that allows us to connect deeply with the world and deeper gradients of ourselves. It is also capable of immense healing. Dr Joe Dispensa and his team’s research has shown that meditative experiences that induce intense states of joy and love, have cured disabilities, healed cancer, including terminal cases of it, mental health disorders, and much more. 

When the heart fails, as the quote from Muhammed reflects, the body fails. A blocked heart inflames the body, the mind, and causes dis-ease. The heart, when it is balanced and unblocked, is able to tap into energies and states like peace, love, intuitive insight, joy, and compassion. When the heart is blocked which is more often the case in modern societies, we are less able to heal, be healthy, relate well with others, flow, and have inner direction and intuition. 

While the more scientific HeartMath tools also heal the heart including at this subtle level, you can add an extra dimension to it all with these tools: 

1) Chakra healing videos/frequencies (easy to find on YouTube) 

You can play solfeggio frequencies music and heart chakra music in your living space, listen to them as you sleep, or while you’re travelling to work. You can also combine these with meditation for an added effect. One example for the heart, is this one: 

2. The Meta-Bavna/Loving-Kindness Meditation Technique

There is a meditation practice specifically focused on the heart and love for ourselves and others, it is the meta-bavna. For a period of 25–45 minutes, you can follow these steps: 

1. Get into a relaxed but alert posture, one you can stay in for the whole practice. 
2. Start with a body scan: run your awareness of your body from either your toes or the tip of your head, up or down your body to the other side. This relaxes your body and centres your state for the practice. 
3. Now, conjure up yourself in your mind, and give loving regard to yourself. You can say things internally like ‘may I be well’, ‘may I be happy’, and ‘may I be free from suffering’ as well. Appreciate your qualities, and give your sympathies and kindness to yourself. 
4. Now, do the same, but for a close friend! Someone that makes you feel good. Hold them in your mind, and give them loving regard, compassion, kindness, and understanding. 
5. Now, do the same, but for someone who you don’t know too well; a neutral person. See that they are a person as well, looking to be happy, be free from suffering too, and that they have a past as well. 
6. Now and the most difficult step so far, bring someone to mind who you see negatively. Don’t pick someone too difficult, especially to start with. Now do the same: give them your compassion, understanding, or at least acceptance. See that they too, have much in common with you: a past, the desire to be happy, and to be free from suffering. 
7. Finally, imagine you, your friend, the acquaintance or neutral person, and the person you don’t get along with, all together. Imagine your loving-kindness being shared equally between you, you can imagine this as an orb that transcends and includes you all. Then, imagine this orb expanding out across your community, the wider world, nature, the seas and mountains, and even out to the universe. Allow yourself and all beings to radiate in this loving-kindness. 
8. Finally, bring yourself back to the room and settle out of the practice; you can wiggle your toes and fingers, and slowly move your body. The practice is complete! 

The meta-bavna is practiced by Buddhists across the world, which along with the mindfulness of breathing technique, offer a well-rounded spiritual practice for the mind, body, and the heart. 

3. The Green Light Heart Bath Technique

A simple and quick technique that uses visualisation alongside methods similar to the HeartMath institute practices mentioned earlier. This can take anywhere between 5–15 minutes depending on your schedule: 

1. Settle into a comfy and relaxed position. 
2. Start breathing slowly and deeply into your heart space, and then imagine energy flowing into and out of your heart. 
3. Now, visualise an emerald-green energy radiating out from your heart, getting bigger with each breath taken in and out. 
4. Silently or outloud, repeat a mantra of either ‘Yam’ or ‘Om’, both are heart-healing mantra words. Om emphasises the ‘o’, as in the pronounciation of the letter o in a word like ‘go’ with a subtle ‘mmm’ sound at the end of it, a bit like the ‘mmm’ you might say after a good meal! Yam, is ‘Y’ as in the y in ‘yak’ and then an extended ‘am’. Yaamm. 

The Body and Mind are Ultimately One

You can influence your mind through your body, and your body through your mind; they are reflections of the same thing, deeply intertwined. Connecting them both, symbolically, is the heart; just like how emotion mediates between intentions, thoughts and bodily sensations, the heart and its state influences our actions and states of mind. 

To make the most of your life, you need to understand and work with both mind and body. The way to do this, is to combine tools that focus on each area. The heart is a centre of a physical, emotional, and mental nature and with it being so connected to health, wellbeing, and intelligence, it’s important to look after it. 

One huge cause of disease, or dis-ease, really ties into matters of the heart. A combination of short and long-term stress, and resulting inflammation are the leading causes of disease in the body; they gradually break the body down and put things out of place. It can be a combination of our day to day stress, as well as underlying stress from deeper psychological wounds. 

When we’re in a relaxed, coherent, and open state, our body’s physiology follows suit; that’s the good stuff like low blood pressure, lower blood sugar, less inflammation, better immune function, more endorphins, more balance across the body’s systems, and neuroplasticity, to name some! 

So, as a final invitation, consider how your heart and your body are doing; how do they relate with your state of mind and your beliefs? Would you like to change any or some of that? If so, you could combine some of these tools and practices and see if they help: 

Tools and practices list for broader healing and heart coherence: 

• Balanced breathing
• Meditation (beginner? Transcendental meditation can be a great start!)
• Yoga and other movement-based exercises, like dancing
• Exercise, gym, working out, sport, and martial arts
• Hiking and getting into nature, especially if you’re living in a city
• Improving diet: foods, dietary balance, nutrition intake, vitamins, organic, dropping gluten, and reducing processed foods are some ideas
• Therapy, including using tools on yourself, such as inner child work
• Journalling: daily writing and reflections 
• A gratitude practice: recall and immerse in what you are thankful for and build this up as a habit
• Chanting the ‘Om’ mantra for 10–20 minutes daily

A few final words, listen to your heart. When dying people are interviewed about their lives and regrets, the top regrets are consistent: they left words unspoken, didn’t spend enough time with their loved ones, never did what they really wanted to do, they didn’t pursue their passion. 

These are all matters of the heart. If you’ve ignored your heart, you’ll know it because you’ll feel dissatisfied; as if your life is a rat race; as if there is little meaning, purpose and connection. These are all symptoms of a heart that could do with some nurturing and listening to. 

The heart of the matter is this: you can’t live a fulfilled life without your heart. Take what is here and in yourself, and put it to use! There’s no time like the present to make that change, say those words, and do what you want to do. Simply resting our focus on the heart has a healing, balancing, and curative effect. 

What you need is already inside of you, never lose sight of that. Truly. Don’t let the ape-shit matters of survival and competition cloud the soul and corrupt what you know inside to be good, true, and beautiful. It’s your life, enjoy it, savour it, and make the most of it! When all is said and done, you’ll have mistakes and lessons, sure, but not regrets 🙂 

From my heart to yours, 

Kyle