By Jon P. Frieda, MBA
February is heart health month. How much do you know about you heart? It pumps blood throughout your body, right? But, are you aware that it is a far more miraculous component of your being than you may even imagine? For example, do you know that your heart emits electromagnetic fields, which are frequencies that are influenced by your emotions? Long established and basic physiology has the understanding that your heart sends signals to your brain. In fact, every moment of every day your heart is having a conversation with your brain. Interested? If so, read on as we highlight and explore the connection of the heart and the brain, and the role that our emotions and intentions play in our daily lives from the womb to the tomb.
At its most basic level we can understand the duality of positive and negative. In short, every image has a mirror image. Good and bad, happy and sad, calm and angry, the examples are infinite. In our December 2018 article, we touched on the frequency by which a developing fetus’s brain begins to wire itself. In fact, in fetal development, the heart develops and starts beating before the brain develops and brain activity begins. Today, science has demonstrated and can measure that a mother’s brainwaves synchronize a developing child’s heartbeats.
Stress, anxiety and the feeling of being overwhelmed are ever present for most adults, and can be traced back to our childhood when first we experienced them, literally felt them, by observing our parents or other adults around us. So, it is these memories, both long and short term that influence our emotional wellbeing and the signals that our heart sends to our brain, telling our brain what kind of energy to send out to our body. You should know better than anyone whether your brain is sending out high vibration positive energy or low vibration negative energy to your body. Fortunately, you have a choice in the matter.
At this point, are you getting the sense that our lives are more than just the physical reality that we are taught about in school? If so, then it should come as no surprise that as human beings our hearts are intimately harmonized with our brains. Or, in the case of feelings of stress, anxiety and overwhelm, that for most of us, the connection between the heart and the brain is most often playing out of tune. Optimistically, there are ways that we can re-engage with our hearts such that our brain will send out signals to our body instructing all of our organs to resonate in harmony like a well-practiced symphony, activating a cascade of biochemical connections that influence everything from our immune systems to our longevity.
Interestingly, scientists have discovered that the heart has a sophisticated neural system that consists of 40,000 specialized sensory neurites that have been referred to as the “little brain in the heart”. Research has revealed that these neurites can learn, remember and think independently from the neurons in the brain. In today’s world, we are conditioned to address the brain only, but more and more physicians and therapists are opening up to the fact that we need to address both the heart and the brain symbiotically.
The brain deals in logic, fear and doubt, manifesting as the ego. The heart deals in compassion, empathy and intuition and dwells in the subconscious. While the brain complicates things, the heart simplifies them.
One simple exercise that you can do to engage and harmonize your heart and mind is to make a conscious intention to shift your awareness from your thinking mind to your thinking heart. Gently touch your heart center, located over your sternum, with the tip of your finger, your open palm, or both of your hands in a prayer position. Your awareness naturally goes to where you feel the touch. Next, slow your breathing, taking deep breaths in through your nose and our through your mouth. This breathing exercise sends a powerful message to your heart and brain, signaling that you are in a place that is safe and that you are not in any danger. Physiologically, your heart beat changes and transmits that new beat, or frequency, to your brain. Your brain begins to cease sending the message to your body that it needs to churn out stress hormones and generate stressful responses such as unhealthy eating, alcohol consumption, binge watching electronic devices in lieu of getting a good night sleep, and more, in the brain’s ever present desire and quest to experience temporary forms of escape from being stuck in the perpetual reel of the fight or flight mode of existence. This harmonic resonance awakens your healing chemistry, beneficially effecting every organ and restorative process in your body. Finally, focus your intention on creating feelings in your heart of appreciation, care and compassion, and gratitude for yourself and all of humanity.
This simple primal act is the mirror image of the fight or flight response, and is the key to truly discovering who you are individually and in this world. If you practice this process and integrate it into your daily lifestyle you will inevitably begin to embrace the changes in your life that trigger the stress, anxiety and overwhelming feelings in a more healthy and harmonious way. Let your heart lead the way and you will tune into a frequency that will manifest the best reality of your choosing.
Jon P. Frieda, is the Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Neels Pharmacy. 314-849-3123. #8 Crestwood Executive Center, Crestwood, MO 63126.