According to Gallop, in 2019, one-third of people around the world reported symptoms of stress and worry. Stress has been linked to heart disease, gastrointestinal disorders, and anxiety disorders. The American Institute of Stress reports that approximately 120,000 people die every year as a direct result of work-related stress. Stress, which causes anger, anxiety, and depression, has emerged as a potentially important risk factor for coronary heart disease.
Do you know, the latest 2022 research on “Preliminary Study on Self-Healing and Self-Health Management in Older Adults” says, that emotions have an influence on a person’s health. The removal of worries naturally reduces psychological pressures. “The expression of positive emotions results in a pleasant psychological state.”
Stress is an emotion that is necessary to carry out an important task but if it overpowers you, it may cause many issues in mental health. Psychologists say Emotions are as much a part of the heart and body as they are of the brain.
You would be happy to know that the heart the major organ in your body, can heal you from any disease.
The article will cover the heart and brain connection, how the heart and brain work together, how your spiritual heart brings balance to your mind and body, and how to communicate with your spiritual heart. Simple spiritual practices can help you live a stress-free life.
Energetic communication between hearts
The electrical field amplitude of the heart is about 60 times greater than the electrical activity generated by the brain. The electrocardiogram (ECG) field can be detected anywhere on the surface of the body. Additionally, SQUID-based magnetometers calculated that the magnetic field produced by the heart is more than 100 times stronger than the field created by the brain and can be detected in all directions.
How electrocardiomagnetic communication works between two people depends on the magnetic fields emitted by their hearts. The heart is the organ that emits the largest amount of rhythmic electromagnetic radiation in the body, which extends all around the space of the body.
Pribram’s proposal, discussed earlier, is that low-frequency oscillations generated by the heart and body in the form of afferent neural, hormonal, and electrical patterns are the carriers of emotional information and the high-frequency oscillations. The spectra found in the EEG show the conscious perception and labeling feelings and emotions. When the heart secretes many different hormones with each contraction, there is a hormonal pulse pattern that correlates with heart rhythms.
According to www.iviscience.com suggests the heart’s field is an important carrier of information.
Researchers have shown through the heart’s EEG graphs that psychophysiological information can be encoded in electromagnetic fields. They recorded the different psychophysiological states of 12 people in states of deep appreciation and anger. The ECG, power spectrum graphs of different emotional states are shown below.
Heart- second complex nervous system
It has been observed through research by heartmath.org, that the intrinsic cardiac nervous system (heart-brain) has influenced brain faculties and physiological factors such as perception, motivation, and emotional processing.
The heart communicates in 4 ways i.e., through neurons, hormones and pulse waves, and electromagnetic fields. Research claims that the heart communicates with the brain resulting in our behavior of how we react and perceive the world.
The latest research published as “the science of the heart” says the neural network on the heart is just like a brain and is termed “a brain on the heart.”
What is the connection between a fast heart rate and the brain?
The neural messages from the intrinsic cardiac nervous system (CNS) travel to the brain via afferent and efferent nerves (neurons). They travel through both the spinal column and vagal nerves in the parasympathetic nervous system (called rest & digest) and sympathetic nervous system (alert ) where it travels through different brain parts to the cerebral cortex. The sympathetic nervous system increases the heartbeat in case of any dangerous or fearful situation.
The efferent nerves (motion neurons) carry the information from the (intrinsic cardiac nervous system) CNS to the muscles, glands, and organs. The afferent nerves carry neural information from the muscles, senses, and skin to the central nervous system (CNS).
The VAGUS NERVE is the brain’s method to calm down the parasympathetic nervous system which is called rest and digest. The vagus called as wanderer nerve that travels throughout the body. It is considered no other nerve has a far-reaching effect.
It controls the brain (anxiety and depression)
gut (stomach acidity, digestive juices),
heart (heart rate, B.P., and stroke),
liver and pancreas (glucose storage and balance)
gallbladder (release toxins, release bile and fat breakdown).
We will discuss later how massaging the vagus nerve can relieve you from 90% of mental and physical disorders.
But one thing is clear: the heart sends more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart. In short, anger causes increased sympathetic activity, while many relaxation techniques increase parasympathetic activity.
Therefore, the study investigated in Heart Math institute the connection between the faster heart rate and the brain is various emotions that play a vital role in the change of heart rate and autonomic nervous system.
Oppenheimer and Hopkins, The insular and medial prefrontal cortexes part in the brain are important regions that regulate the heart’s rhythm, especially under emotionally challenging conditions. Much evidence from researchers has shown that there are direct influence areas of the brain integral to emotion production and regulation.
Research says despite the above functions of the heart, it also interacts through hormones and secretes hormones and neurotransmitters that have a wide range of impacts on the body.
The relation between Stress and heart
The cardiovascular and endocrine systems hinge on each other to connect and control other body functions. The hormones are circulated throughout the body via the cardiovascular system. Endocrine glands secrete their hormones into the bloodstream, where they reach the target tissue(s).
It has been proposed that people with severe stress conditions end up having a cardiac arrest. Stress and other negative emotional conditions create many pathological conditions like hypertension, ischemic stroke, coronary disease, cardiac arrest, neurodegenerative disease, sleep disorders, fatigue, etc.
Stress creates negative emotional thoughts and an unstoppable mummering mind. The frequent occurrence of negative thoughts like judgment, inferiority complex, guilt, failure, impatience, resentment, anger, and self-doubt consumes a large part of our energy.
Considerable evidence recommends that the development of the ANS (autonomic nervous system), specifically the vagus nerves, was essential to the development of emotional experience, the ability to self-regulate emotional courses, and social behavior and that it underlies the social engagement system. The ANS is the system responsible for regulating internal functions of the body like the heart, gastrointestinal tract, and other hormonal secretion glands.
The heart’s autonomic nervous system made it clear that the heart is even more important. We kept on working on minds and thoughts. But the heart regulates our digestive system and hormones. As discussed above, the hormones in their stressful state are being circulated in the body by the cardiovascular system. The synchronization of the body gets disturbed.
According to Eisenberg et al.(1989), the ANS system outgrows action tendencies with many negative emotions like fear and anger, but also spurs positive emotions like gratitude and compassion.
Many experiments have been conducted by researchers to demonstrate heart rhythm synchronization between animals and humans. A collaborative study by Ellen Gehrke, Ph.D., shows the coherent state of the heart between her and Tonopah). She showed how the emotional state of a person shifted the heart rate of the horse.
Spiritual heart
How to create brain and heart coherence?
It is clear that compassion and emotions are well understood by animals and humans. Similarly, prayer and meditation, open the heart and body toward love and compassion and activate the parasympathetic system.
What are the characteristics of a healthy spiritual heart?
Children and McCraty (2001) demonstrated that optimal heart rhythms are mapped onto qualitative accounts of spiritual experience because a spiritual heart always chooses the path of love and safety.
Berett et al, 2018 showed the power of spiritual practices, “listening to the heart”, healed people who had gone through severe isolation, withdrawal, and alleged lack of love.
The increased heart activity caused by a profound connection with spirituality could help lessen the harmful effects of everyday pressures and reduce inequities in cardiovascular health among marginalized groups. The heart—the master organ—the mind, and the spirit can be brought back into balance and renewed via spiritual experience and expression.
The best way to grow spiritually is to bring balance and synchronization to your mind and thoughts. The research also indicated the coherence between the physiological, emotional, and cardiac systems that are responsible for cognitive and emotional experiences. When the mind and emotions are in equilibrium, we respond to difficult situations with greater stability and inner equilibrium because we are more self-assured and in alignment with our deeper underlying beliefs.
To bring stability to the mind and emotions, it is extremely important to work in parallel to bring balance to the body.
If you are running through negative emotions like anxiety, stress, etc. Stimulating vague nerves (the nerve that starts from the brain and runs through the heart and other organs of the body) can improve your mood and lower anxiety levels.
The techniques are
- Breathing.
- Yoga
- Massaging the right side of the neck and foot.
- Meditation.
- Visualization.
Four powerful practices can heal your heart (also called the seat of the soul) and help widen its magnetic field with healing vibrations.
- Love.
- Compassion.
- Gratitude.
- Forgiveness.
These four practices will make you more aware of how to communicate with your spiritual heart. Gratitude has the power to gratitude turn what we have into enough. The heart chakra, which spiritually has green color, is visualized as the green light coming through it. The practice of visualization calms down the heart and brain and has resulted in providing positive results for acute depression patients. There are many meditations of which the “OM” or “YAM” sound has shown a promising change in the people practicing guided meditations. Yam is the sound of the heart chakra, the vibrations of the sound helped relieve past trauma.
McCraty 2009 and Bruno Cortis 2006, in their article “The Heart is the Spiritual Organ,” have shown that all these small practices would help you come out of any mental and physical distress. It would improve cognitive performance and have long-term positive effects on physiological and psychological health.
According to research by Satchidananda 1978, the heart is the place for unity to form a connection with the divine and cosmic energy. It has the ability to be aware of preconscious knowledge and transcendent experience.
According to Rome, China, and Vedantic scholarship, the heart is the center of a system providing a living force to the body and the seat of awareness.
To experience a spiritual heart, you need to practice being in gratitude every day. To make sure to be in awareness of not hurting anyone.
Heart means to love and be compassionate and forgiving others is the way to a spiritual heart.
