Categories
Blog

What we practice grows stronger. What are you practicing?

Practice refers to “our customary or habitual way of doing something”. In this essay, I’ll focus on our emotions as we move through the day. Our emotions fall into one of two camps – they either renew or deplete us.

What does this mean? Emotions that deplete us disrupt our nervous system and create incoherence in our bodies. Renewing emotions create coherence, meaning all systems in our body are in harmony and working together. This isn’t just ‘woo woo’ stuff, scientists have known it for more than 20 years. Many ancient practices have traditionally operated on this principle.

Depleting Emotions

Emotions such as anger, frustration, irritation, impatience, worry, anxiety, withdrawal, resentment, and burnout deplete our system. These emotions are reflected in our heart rhythms. Depleting emotions result in a chaotic and jerky rhythm that lasts and can be clearly seen, showing that our nervous system is out of sync.

Renewing Emotions

On the other hand, renewing emotions such as gratitude, appreciation, joy, awe, love, interest, hope, serenity, pride, excitement, passion, courage, contentment, fulfillment, and ease quickly smooth our heart rhythms. You may have felt a difference in your body as you read the list of depleting emotions and then the renewing emotions.

How to Focus on Renewal

Notice when you find yourself with a depleting emotion and stop. Take a deep breath and call on a renewing emotion by thinking of something that brings up that positive feeling. Bring it into yourself and anchor it. Let the feeling inhabit your body. The more you practice this, the easier it gets. It takes less than a minute.

The Payoff

Practicing renewing emotions throughout the day, either in the moment or hours later, will strengthen your calmness and coherence. What you practice grows stronger.

Categories
Blog

The Power of Heart-Centered Breathing

Want to calm down? Drop your attention out of your head and into your heart. Picture yourself breathing through your heart, and then begin to slow your breathing down even more. It only takes a minute to reset to coherence, which means all your systems line up and work in harmony.

Science has discovered that emotions such as frustration, irritation, impatience, anger, and worry disrupt our system, inhibit brain function, and impair our performance. Conversely, emotions such as appreciation, calmness, patience, and confidence promote optimal performance by creating coherence.

Why does heart-centered breathing work?

We’ve known for years that the heart and brain constantly communicate. More recently, scientists have discovered the heart sends 5-10 times the number of messages to the brain than the brain sends to the heart.

Heart rhythms directly affect the brain centers involved in foresight, decision-making, social awareness, and our ability to self-regulate. Our cortex (the front part of our brain) does the thinking. But, it can only do that when the thalamus tells it to do so, because the thalamus is the command center and synchronizes all the cortical activity.

When we focus on our heart, it changes what is happening with both the sympathetic (our gas pedal) and the parasympathetic (our brake) nervous systems. When we are incoherent, they work against each other. By bringing our attention to the heart, these systems synchronize and begin working together. This harmony changes and unlocks the brain in a beneficial way.

The next time you feel out of sorts (incoherent), center your attention on your heart and begin to breathe yourself into coherence. It works.