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Heart Centered Living
This month’s health news focuses on heart-centered living. In the past few years, there has been an increasing focus on this topic. We thought that in this month of Valentine’s Day when our focus turns toward expressing our love for others, we’d take a slightly different approach. Instead of focusing on loving others, we thought we’d expand that focus to how we can increase our own capacity to love and appreciate life in all its many forms – whether that’s in a love relationship, a family bond or a deep appreciation with the natural world around you.

For years, people’s “intelligence” was measured by tests that sought to calibrate knowledge and the ability to think and reason, which was then equated to intelligence. Many people are familiar with the concept of intelligent quotients or IQs. In recent years, an alternative view of “intelligence” began to arise when people realized that we humans can be pretty dense about human relationships even when we’re high on the IQ scale. The concept of emotional intelligence began to gain acceptance. 

Researchers Salovey and Mayer coined the term “emotional intelligence” in 1990 to describe the non-cognitive aspects of intelligence. They described emotional intelligence as "a form of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action". Daniel Goleman first published a book on this topic in 1995, Emotional Intelligence, which was a best seller. Since then, this concept has become a buzzword in corporate America.

Being aware of one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions is an important part of the spectrum of human intelligence. The question becomes how does one expand on this ability to be more fully aware of emotions (our own and others’) and to move into heart-centered living?

Let’s start by looking at the heart. Its purpose is to pump blood, delivering life-giving oxygen to every part of the body. In Eastern thought, the heart chakra is centered over the chest region and is believed to be at the core of emotional well-being. When the heat chakra is balanced, it can be a source of love, confidence, creativity, and inspiration. Because the fourth (heart) chakra is a gate between the upper and lower chakras, when the heart chakra is out of balance, it can affect all of your energy centers.

The Institute of HeartMath, a non-profit mind-body research foundation, discovered that when people focused on their heart (heart muscle, heart chakra, heart location in the chest), they could consciously alter the rhythm of the heart. Why is this important? They found that when we are relaxed and heart-centered, our heart rhythm is smooth and regular. When we are angry and out-of-balance, our heart rhythm is spiky and irregular. Through research, they also discovered that people who consciously focused on their heart and regulated the rhythm were happier, healthier and more satisfied with life.

Students who have learned a technique for becoming heart-centered were found to have fewer behavioral problems and their test scores went up. Being heart-centered may not have made these kids smarter, per se, but it did help them calm down and focus enough to help them learn more productively.

All kinds of studies around the world have repeatedly shown that people who are happy are healthier and live longer. So, learning to be heart-centered can certainly be good for your mental and physical health. And, if just a few minutes a day could reduce your stress and improve your health, you’d probably be willing to give it a try.

Great, you think, now what? Rather than adding another complicated regime to your already busy and complicated life, take the simple path. Begin with putting your hand on your heart and trying to feel your heart in your body (not with your hand but just by sensing it). Now, imagine breathing through your heart. With each inhale, air comes into your heart and into the rest of your body. With each exhale, air comes from all over your body and back out of your heart. Do that for a few minutes until your breathing feels calm and natural (by the way, this alone can be great to counteract anxiety and nervousness). Next, conjure up a positive feeling – the feeling you get when you think about your spouse or partner, your children, your pets, your best friend, a warm sunny beach, whatever inspires those feelings of love, compassion and appreciation. Keep breathing and focusing on feeling those feelings through your heart. Do this for as long as you have time or for as long as you feel comfortable.

Once you learn how to get yourself into a heart-centered space, you can conjure this up more easily. When you feel rushed or frustrated or angry, move into your heart-centered space. Before you yell at someone in traffic or on the subway or in the grocery store, get heart-centered and let go of those things that honestly don’t matter.

You’ll find your stress is lower, your sense of joy and freedom is higher and you might even find that you’re healthier and more vibrant than ever before. As the Beatles once said, “All you need is love.”

Consult with your health care provider before embarking on any diet, nutritional or exercise program. The health news here is provided for your information only and is not intended as medical or health advice in any manner. Taking incorrect doses of vitamins, herbs and other supplements can be harmful to your health. You should read and follow label directions carefully and consult with your health care practitioner.