Transform your response to stress through heart coherence
Stress causes many problems including many musculoskeletal complaints such as joint and muscle pain, headaches and more. Many disorders are related to stress, as you can see in the inforgraphic below.
Johnson Chiropractic Neurology & Nutrition offers HeartMath heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback technology as part of its professional offerings to give patients a drug-free choice in dealing with stress. Thankfully, there are also several HeartMath tools that one can use at home to help you train yourself to become more stress resiliant (see the special web page link at end of aricle with a speical discount).
Personally, I have been using the technology for about ten years after learning about it from one of may former employess who went on to study chiropractic many years ago. Recognizing the importance of reducing stress to reduce anxiety in many of our ADHD patients who benefit from our neurofeeedback program, adding heart rate variability biofeedback really made a lot of sense.
Stress Affects Your Body
Understanding the mechanics of stress gives you the advantage of being more aware of and sensitive to your own level of stress and knowing when and how to take proactive steps. This increased awareness also helps you to better care for your family, friends and colleagues. Here are a few stress facts that many people are unaware of:
Fact #1:Your body doesn’t care if it’s a big stress or a little one.
The human body doesn’t discriminate between a BIG stress or a little one. Regardless of the significance, stress affects the body in predictable ways. A typical stress reaction, which most of us experience dozens of times each day, begins with a cascade of 1,400 biochemical events in your body. If these reactions are left unchecked we age prematurely, our cognitive function is impaired, our energy is drained, and we are robbed of our effectiveness and clarity.
Fact #2:Stress can make smart people do stupid things.
Stress causes what brain researchers call “cortical inhibition.” The phenomenon of cortical inhibition helps to explain why smart people do dumb things. Simply said, stress inhibits a small part of your brain and you can’t function at your best. When we are in coherence – a state where we are cognitively sharp, emotionally calm, and we feel and think with enhanced clarity – the brain, heart and nervous system are working in harmony. This state of coherence facilitates our cognitive functioning – we are actually operating at peak performance mentally, emotionally and physically.
Fact #3:People can become numb to their stress.
We can be physiologically experiencing stress yet mentally numb to it because we’ve become so accustomed to it. Some have become so adapted to the daily pressures, irritations and annoyances of life that it starts to seem normal. Yet the small stresses accumulate quickly and we may not realize how much they’re impairing our mental and emotional clarity and our overall health until it shows up as a bad decision, an overreaction or an unwanted diagnosis at the doctor’s office.
Fact #4:We can control how we respond to stress.
We don’t need to be victims to our own emotions, thoughts and attitudes. We can control how we respond to stress and we can become more sensitive to stressful situations and how they are affecting us before it manifests as a physical, mental or emotional complaint. There are simple, scientifically validated solutions to stress that empower people to rewire their own stress response.
Fact #5:The best strategy is to handle stress in the moment.
The best way to manage stress is to deal with it the very moment you feel it come up. Millions of Americans unsuccessfully use the binge-and-purge approach when it comes to stress. They stress out all day, believing that they can wait until later to recover when they go to an evening yoga class, go to the gym or chill out when they take the weekend off. Unfortunately, when we put off going for our own inner balance our bodies have already activated the stress response and it’s our health that suffers.
BENEFITS OF HEARTMATH
Studies conducted with over 11,500* people have shown improvements in mental & emotional well-being in just 6-9 weeks using HeartMath training and technology:
24% improvement in the ability to focus
30% improvement in sleep
38% improvement in calmness
46% drop in anxiety
48% drop in fatigue
56% drop in depression
* N= 11,903
Percent of individuals responding often to always on normed and validated pre and post Personal and Organizational Quality Assessment (POQA-R)
HeartMath is based on over 26 years of research:
- Over 300 independent peer-reviewed studies
- Recommended by thousands of health professionals
- Used by hundreds of hospitals, schools, corporations and humanitarian organizations
Health Professionals using HeartMath interventions have facilitated health improvements in patients with*:
- Hypertension
- Arrhythmias
- Autoimmune disorders
- Environmental Sensitivity
- Sleep disorders
- Drug and alcohol addiction
- Anger
- Heart failure
- Chronic pain
- Fibromyalgia
- Chronic fatigue
- Anxiety disorders
- Depression
- PTSD
- ADD/ADHD
- Eating disorders
Exploring the Role of the Heart in Human Performance, Volume 2
Authored by Rollin McCraty, Ph.D.
Director of Research, HeartMath Research Center
YOU CAN CREATE MORE FLOW AND LESS STRESS IN YOUR LIFE WITH INNER BALANCE
If you would like to start your journey towards a less stressed life You can get a 10% discount and free shipping on select HeartMath Products. Below you will find an educational flyer to download without any optin required:
HeartMath has a new web page that will help yous understand HeartMath and the technology as well as provide you with a 10% discount on select products including free shipping in the U.S. Just click on the big orange button below to go to the website. Be sure to use the discount code provided on the website.
Always remember one of my mantras., "The more you know about how your body works, the better you can take care of yourself."
For more details about the natural approach I take with my patients, take a look at the book I wrote entitled: Reclaim Your Life; Your Guide To Revealing Your Body's Life-Changing Secrets For Renewed Health. It is available in my office or at Amazon and many other book outlets. If you found value in this article, please use the social sharing icons at the top of this post and please share with those you know who are still suffering with chronic health challenges, despite receiving medical management. Help me reach more people so they may regain their zest for living! Thank you!