HeartMath Technology

What Is HeartMath?

HeartMath is a new technology that has broad-based applications in stress relief, rehabilitation, and performance enhancement. 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, jogging 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 is learning how to transform your reaction to stress, and therefore stop the emotional and physiological fallout that follows.

What is the science behind HeartMath?

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 you 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 sports.

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.

How does HeartMath work?

HeartMath provides techniques that can be practiced daily to help you actively reduce stress in your life. The premise of the HeartMath system is different to many other approaches to stress relief, which typically focus on calming you down after the stressful event has occurred.

What conditions can be helped with HeartMath?

With HeartMath, you learn a variety of  coherence techniques that can help you ‘reset’ your physiological reaction to stress as the event occurs. This can stop the hormonal cascade that triggers the release of cortisol – and you stay coherent (i.e. calm and in balance). When practiced regularly, research has demonstrated that Heart Rate Variability (HRV) bio-feedback can help you feel better emotionally, improve your intuition, increase creativity, assist cognition, control performance anxiety and most importantly REDUCE YOUR STRESS!

Why is reducing Stress so important?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) calls stress a health problem of epidemic proportions. This seems accurate based upon the consequences of stress made available by prestigious Mayo Clinic that refers to the following symptoms as common effects of stress  effecting your body, your mind and your behaviour:

On your Body:

• Headache
• Muscle tension or pain
• Chest pain
• Fatigue
• Change in sex drive
• Stomach upset
• Sleep problems

On your Mind:

• Anxiety
• Restlessness
• Lack of motivation
• Lack of focus
• Irritability
• Anger
• Sadness
• Depression

On your Behaviour:

• Overeating
• Undereating
• Angry outbursts
• Drug use
• Alcohol use
• Social withdrawal

Learn more about our Stress Management System.

The Gold Coast’s first Certified HeartMath Provider

Mind & Body Chiropractic is the Gold Coast’s first fully certified provider of HeartMath stress relief services. Contact us today to find out how HeartMath technology can assist in your pain relief.