Reducing Stress Is the Heart’s Work By Bruce Cryer, President, The Graduate Institute for Holistic Studies; former CEO, HeartMath
ou’ve probably sat through a Zoom meeting and watched a weak presentation, thinking, “What an incoherent presenta- tion that was!” Or maybe you saw somebody mumbling and staggering out of a bar late at night and said to your friend, “That guy is totally incoherent.”
Y Notice how we refer to these scenarios as incoherent. Even if
you don’t know the definition of incoherent, you’ve likely figured out that it is used to mean sub-par, confused, disordered, and so on.
Lasers create what physicists call coherent light, since the
waves and particles emitted by the laser are completely ordered and in sync, flowing in a defined consistent, predictable pattern. On the other hand, regular light sources such as incandescent, fluorescent, or LED lights are defined as emitting incoherent light, since the light waves and particles are not aligned and ordered but rather, they bounce off each other. They do a fine job of illuminat- ing a space, but there’s not much precision. Lasers, however, are capable of incredible precision and effectiveness due to their high degree of coherence. Sophisticated lasers can surgically repair a retina or knee cartilage, along with a host of other remarkable feats. Their exceedingly high degree of order, or coherence, at very low power is their secret.
Keep Your Heart in It
In the early 1990s, I was part of the founding leadership team of the HeartMath Institute, one of the greatest honors of my life. We were founded by a true visionary, Doc Childre, to understand the true function of the heart in many areas of life: physical, mental, emo- tional, and spiritual. In addition to using advanced tools of contem- porary science to perform our studies, we created a simple system of tools that anyone can use to create a fulfilling life, led by the heart. Not just a philosophical system, HeartMath is a scientifically validated system of techniques to reduce stress and create increased coherence in all aspects of life.
Most humans are just getting by in life, like a regular light bulb that does a fine job keeping the kitchen bright but eventually burns out. We can get by for a while on innate skills and capaci- ties, but many people are not operating anywhere near their full potential. To put it in this context, most of us are not exactly lasers, producing exceptional precision and power at remarkably low power. In our relationships and in our work, things break down when “our heart is no longer” into that relationship. This is true for athletes, teachers, health care practitioners, accountants, lawyers, doctors, performers, and people of all areas and walks of life.
In those early HeartMath days, we asked ourselves, “what if people could be taught to train their systems to be more like a laser—ordered, efficient, precise, and coherent—and less like a lamp light, unfocused, overheated, and prone to burning out? And what if the superpower accessible to each human wasn’t just about brain power, but actually about heart power?”
Every day I do practices to help me get into a coherent state, help me stay there, or help me get back to it when my reaction to stress has pulled me out. —Bruce Cryer
Why the Heart Matters
Our research revealed that when someone is experiencing a depleting, stressful emotion, the heart’s rhythmic pattern is actually disordered, unpredictable, and incoherent. When we’re in a stress state our system is incoherent and inefficient; therefore, more en- ergy is required by the heart and we tire out more easily. However, our research has also discovered that when people experience positive renewing emotions such as gratitude, love, humor, com- passion, or peace, the rhythms of their heart become extremely ordered, smooth, and efficient. You are saving energy while your system is being restored.
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