The Heart Brain Earth DNA Interpersonal

Spiritual Health Connection: A survey

Neurocardiology

Almost a century ago, Rudolph Steiner said the greatest discovery of 20th century science would be that the heart is not a pump but vastly more, and that the great challenge of the coming ages of humanity would be, in effect, to allow the heart to teach us to think in a new way. [1]

In the 1970s a small group of cardiovascular researchers joined with a similar group of neurophysiologists to explore areas of mutual interest. This represented the beginning of the new discipline of neurocardiology.

One of the early pioneers in neurocardiology, Dr. J. Andrew Armour, introduced the concept of a functional “heart brain” in 1991. His work revealed that the heart has a complex intrinsic nervous system that is sufficiently sophisticated to qualify as a “little brain” in its own right. The heart’s brain is an intricate network of several types of neurons, neurotransmitters, proteins and support cells like those found in the brain proper. Its elaborate circuitry enables it to act independently of the cranial brain – to learn, remember, and even feel and sense.

Hormonal, chemical, rate and pressure information is translated into neurological impulses by the heart’s nervous system and sent from the heart to the brain through several afferent (flowing to the brain) pathways which enter the brain in an area called the medulla, located in the brain stem. These signals have a regulatory role over many of the autonomic nervous system signals that flow out of the brain to the heart, blood vessels and other glands and organs. They also cascade up into the higher centers of the brain, where they may influence perception, decision making and other cognitive functions. [2]

Heart Rate Variability

A healthy heart has a natural variation, from minute to minute, beat to beat, even at rest. This phenomenon is known as Heart Rate Variability (HRV). It’s a sign of health – the greater the variability the better.

Maximal heart coherence results when breathing and heart rate become perfectly synchronized.

In states of stress, anxiety, anger and sadness the variation tends to be disordered and chaotic. In positive emotional states such as love and gratitude, the variation tends to be ordered and rhythmic. This state of rhythmic variation is known as Heart (Rate Variability) Coherence.

Description: Heartmath chart

Left side: Three types of Heart Rate Variability.

Right side: Corresponding power spectral density (PSD)

Figure from http://www.livingwisdomschool.org/newsarticles/heartmind.html

 

Institute of Heart Math (IHM) research indicates that heart coherence is produced by the inter-relationship of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system (sns), associated with the flight or fight response, tends to increase heart rate. The parasympathetic nervous system (pns), associated with biological processes during rest, tends to reduce heart rate. Coherence is produced by the interaction of these two systems.

A plot of PSD shows the degree of mediation between sns and pns. Activity in the Very Low Frequency band (.0033-.04 Hz) is an indicator of sns function. Activity in the High Frequency band (.15-.4 Hz) is an indicator of pns function. Activity in the .04-.15Hz band reflects a combination of both sns and pns activity. When respiration is entrained with  heart coherence, peak activity occurs near .1 Hz. [3]

Note the PSD peak power output for appreciation in the plot above is almost four times that for relaxation. 

Heart  Brain Entrainment

In addition to the extensive neural communication network linking the heart with the brain and body, the heart generates the body’s most powerful and most extensive rhythmic electromagnetic field.

When the brain entrains to the heart, an electrocardiogram of the heart brain combination shows that the brain wave patterns, including alpha are, in fact, embedded within the larger field of the heart. When brain neurons entrain to the heart’s ECG activity, research shows that the timing of neuronal firing conveys several times more information than the brain alone. 

When the heart is entrained to the brain’s oscillating wave-form, the heart begins to lose coherence. The more the heart entrains to the brain, and the longer it does so, the lower the HRV, the less fractal its processes are. The more predictable and regular the heart becomes, the more diseased it is. To be healthy, the heart must remain in a highly unstable state of dynamic equilibrium.[4]

Psychophysiological Coherence

It is generally believed that conscious awareness originates in the brain alone. Recent scientific research however, suggests that consciousness actually emerges from the brain and body acting together. A growing body of evidence suggests that the heart plays a particularly significant role in this process.

IMH proposes that the heart’s electromagnetic field acts as a carrier wave for information that provides a global synchronizing signal for the entire body. This perspective requires an energetic concept of information, in which patterns of organization are enfolded into waves of energy.

IMH has demonstrated that sustained positive emotions (ie Heart Rate Variability Coherence) appears to give rise to a distinct mode of functioning, which they call psychophysiological coherence. In this state, heart rhythms not only exhibit a sine wave-like pattern, but also the heart’s electromagnetic field becomes correspondingly more organized.

IHM research suggests that psychophysiological coherence is important in enhancing consciousness– both for the body’s sensory awareness of the information required to execute and coordinate physiological function, and also to optimize emotional stability, mental function, and intentional action.

While IHM has demonstrated that calm or tranquil emotions facilitate the ability to focus or concentrate, it has also been shown that focus or concentration can calm the emotions. [5]

A paper by Glen Rein and Rollin McCraty provided the first experimental evidence to support the hypothesis that positive (coherent) heart states produce physiological results at the DNA level. 

Knowing the Future

Using a rigorous experimental design, they found compelling evidence that both the heart and brain receive and respond to information about a future event before the event actually happens. Even more surprising was the fact that the heart appears to receive this “intuitive” information before the brain. This suggests that the heart’s field may be linked to a more subtle energetic field. [6]

Heart brain and Earth

It turns out that the geomagnetic field also has a profound effect on the heart/brain system. Just as a tuning fork has natural frequencies for sound, the planet Earth has natural frequencies for electromagnetic radiation, called  Schumann Resonances, to which the human heart/brain entrains.

The nearly perfectly conducting terrestrial surface and the electrically charged ionosphere form an enclosed cavity. Electromagnetic impulses, like those from lightning flashes, bounce back and forth longitudinally (resonate) forming standing waves. These standing waves are called Schumann resonances, named after W. O. Schumann, the discoverer of the fundamental resonance of 7.8 Hertz in 1954.  The nominal average frequencies observed are the fundamental at 7.8, with harmonics at 14, 20, 26, 33, 39, and 45 Hz, with slight diurnal variation. [7]
 
The Human Heart/Brain system also has natural frequencies for electromagnetic radiation which spans the frequency range of the Schumann Resonances; 7.8 to 40 Hz.

Dr. Herbert König, Schumann’s successor at Munich University, was the first to demonstrate a connection between Schumann’s (first)  Resonance and brain rhythms. König compared human EEG recordings with natural electromagnetic fields in the environment and found that the average frequency produced by Schumann vibrations coincided with the frequency of alpha rhythms, 8 to 13 Hz, the brain frequency of the relaxed and creative mind. Moreover, König discovered that the dominant brain wave rhythm of all mammals in alpha or resting state is 7.83 Hz .

The Schumann Resonance  is important in synchronization of diurnal and ELF brain rhythms. In one experiment, student volunteers lived for four weeks in a hermetically sealed environment that specifically screened out magnetic fields of 7.83 Hz. These students started suffering emotional distress and migraine headaches which were immediately cleared after a brief exposure to 7.83 Hz. frequency. [8]

Interpersonal Connection

Experiments conducted at the Institute of HeartMath have found remarkable evidence that the heart’s electromagnetic field can transmit information between people. An exchange of heart energy between individuals up to five feet apart has been measured. One person’s brain waves may actually synchronize to another person’s heart. When an individual is generating a coherent heart rhythm, synchronization between that person’s brain waves and another person’s heartbeat is more likely to occur. These findings suggest that individuals in a psychophysiologically coherent state become more aware of the information encoded in the heart fields of those around them.

The results of these experiments have led HeartMath to infer that the nervous system acts as an “antenna,” which is tuned to and responds to the electromagnetic fields produced by the hearts of other individuals.[9]

Studies show, as one might suspect, that  the more love and care a person has received in their life, the more easily they receive cardiac signals from another.[10]

Results also suggest that a coherent energy field can be generated and/or enhanced by the intentions of small groups of participants trained to send coherence-facilitating intentions to a target receiver. The evidence of heart rhythm synchronization across participants supports the possibility of heart-to-heart bio-communications.  [11]

Based on these interpersonal results, Heart Math has launched a Global Coherence Initiative, which strives to positively affect the global electromagnetic environment by enlisting the help of thousands of Heart Coherent volunteers. The stated goal is to establish another set of monitor systems to measure earth’s magnetic fields, and then to monitor human-earth energetic interactions. [12] 

We know the earth’s geomagnetic field has a major effect on our quality of consciousness. This would suggest that the effect of the human EM field on the geomagnetic field is very small. It is also not clear how the difference between geomagnetic and human EM fields would be distinguished.

Heart Brain and Spirit

Olga Louchakova notes that the experience of heart consciousness can be achieved through spiritual practices. [13]

Appendix

Heart consciousness: Name associations:

Rudolph Steiner, Glen Rein, Rollin McCraty, William Tiller, Joseph Chilton Pearce, Olga Louchakova,

 

Organizations:

Heartmath, IONS, ISSSEEM

 

Other Links:

The heart, the first organ of the human body to form, is the supreme theme of this year's ISSSEEM conference (2009):

http://personaltransformationcenter.com/articles/2009/06/11/the-living-matrix-issseem-conference-schedule/

The Living Matrix:

http://thelivingmatrixmovie.com/

Foundation for Mind Being Research

http://www.fmbr.org/

 

 

 



[5]  http://www.livingwisdomschool.org/newsarticles/heartmind.html

The value of Heart Math research has been validated in educational settings such as livingwisdomschool.

 

[6] http://www.laskow.net/articles/ModDNAbyCohHeartFreq.pdf ]

[13] http://www.fmbr.org/speakers/speakers-08-09.php This web page also includes many other related topics