What is HeartMath?

HeartMath is a new technology that has broad-based applications in stress reduction, rehabilitation, and performance enhancement. HeartMath techniques have been proven to facilitate rapid, profound, and enduring improvements in a wide variety of conditions. The HeartMath system is a scientifically validated way to reduce stress, and more importantly, to transform the negative emotional and physiological effects that occur when you experience feelings of stress or a stressful event. Heartmath is different from other stress relieving activities like listening to music or taking a warm bath because those activities take place after the event has passed. By the time you wind down, you've already experienced the harmful, often unpleasant effects of stress. The stress hormone cortisol, for example, stays in your system for hours once it is released in to your system. High levels of stress hormones can have a serious negative impact on your physical health. So the key appears to be learning how to transform your reaction to stress, and therefore stop the emotional and hormonal fallout that follows.

Why reducing stress is important

Almost daily, new research reveals more harmful effects of too much stress. In the past few years alone, studies have shown that those of us who are regularly stressed have:

How does HeartMath work?

In studying the science of the heart, The Institute of HeartMath has discovered is that your heart rhythms have an impact on your thinking. When your heart rhythm is coherent (smooth and orderly), you are able to access higher-thinking centers in your brain, so can think more clearly and see more options or solutions to problems. When your heart becomes incoherent, this access becomes inhibited and you are likely to find your reactions are slower and you are not be able to think so clearly. Studies have found that people in a coherent state (i.e. where their heart rhythm pattern is smooth and orderly) are noticeably able to improve their thinking and performance, whether they are making decisions or playing sport. Over time, coherence also helps to reduce the 'stress' hormone cortisol – which is produced whenever you experience feelings of frustration, anxiety, anger or despair – and increases the 'vitality' hormone DHEA. Ideally, these hormones should be in balance, but when you experience frequent stress, cortisol can become too high and DHEA depleted. This pattern is found in most major diseases as is associated with accelerated aging, brain cell death, impaired memory and learning, decreased bone density, impaired immune function, increased blood sugar and increased fat accumulation around the waist and hips.

What conditions can be helped with HeartMath?

Heart Rhythm coherence feedback (HeartMath) can be very useful in the treatment of chronic anxiety, stress, depression, anger and other emotional issues. It is also an effective addition to treatment programs for chronic conditions that are associated with or exacerbated by emotional stress, including fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, hypertension, asthma, environmental sensitivity, sleep disorders, diabetes, cardiac arrhythmias, hypertension, congestive heart failure, and many others. It has been proven particularly effective in cardiac rehabilitation programs to help patients reduce stress and increase cardiovascular efficiency. HeartMath can also be used for performance enhancement and for reducing test taking anxiety.

Practitioners: Cindy Heelan

Integrative Health Center of Maine is located at 222 Auburn Street in Portland, Maine.

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