Using Heart Power to Reduce Stress

Nov 15, 2011
Kris Ramasra

The Heart of Love - clarita

Compare the brain with the heart. Give your heart an emotional workout and learn how to use its power to reduce stress in your life

Brain workouts have become very popular over the last few years, both in printed books and in games software. These workouts provide great entertainment, with the added advantage that you can ‘reduce’ the age of your brain. Older people in particular will feel good about that.

But did you know that working with your heart can make you feel good too? In addition, working with your heart can really reduce stress.

Interesting Facts about your Heart

Your heart beats about 70 times a minute throughout your life, depending upon your biological age and what you are doing and feeling.
This means that your heart beats about 36 million times a year, or more than 2 billion times in a lifetime of 70 years, usually without maintenance. (Isn’t your heart wonderful?)
In that 70 years, your heart pumps 5 to 6 litres of blood a minute through about 95,000 kilometres of veins and arteries in your body.

The Relationship between your Heart and your Brain

Your heart started to beat in the womb even before your brain was formed.
In fact, your heart does not need to be connected to your brain in order to beat. (During a heart transplant, the nerves connecting the heart to the brain are severed and never subsequently reinstated.)
Instead, your heart can communicate with your brain via your hormonal system, your blood pressure and via an electromagnetic field.
Your heart has an electromagnetic field which is 5000 times larger than the one generated by your brain.

What Does That Mean To You?

The heart has its own nervous system which can make decisions.
The brain sends orders to the heart, but the heart does not always obey. Instead, the heart can make its own decision about what to do.
Occasionally, the heart sends instructions to the brain, which the brain obeys.
When your heart and your brain work together, you obtain more clarity and a greater sense of well being. So when you are brain training on your Nintendo (ie engaging your brain), and doing it because you want to (ie engaging your heart), then the process is very enjoyable. You don’t enjoy something if your heart is not in it

Giving your Heart a Workout

So if you are to enjoy activities and get the most out of them, heart energy is an essential addition to brain activity. But it is also possible to target the heart itself for its own particular workout. How can you do that?

By cultivating those feelings associated with the heart. By cultivating compassion, altruism, appreciation, gratitude, joy and, unsurprisingly, love. These feelings not only make us feel good but influence us to make better decisions. They also expand the heart’s magnetic field and so can affect anyone standing close to us.

One particularly good workout is deliberately opening your heart. For those who need help in opening their hearts, here are some guidelines:

Whether standing, sitting or lying down, take 4 or 5 seconds to relax as much as possible
Take 2 or 3 deep breaths, focussing on the middle of your chest. Pretend you are breathing into and out of your heart.
Remember someone or something you love very much. Someone who makes you melt inside. (A small kitten I used to have does it for me).
Mentally open your arms to that person or thing, and draw them into your heart.
Say ‘hello, dear one, I love you very much’ or whatever words make you feel comfortable.
Let your heart energy flow around them and you and embrace you all in a glow of love.
Hold this feeling as long as you have time for.
Notice how different you feel as you now go about your daily business.
This heart workout need only take a minute, so can be done at any time.

Reduce Stress by Cultivating Heart Energy

Stress is ongoing. It seems to be part of our lives. But we can deal with stress more easily by cultivating our heart energy.

So how do we do this? First, realize that stress is something you do to yourself. If you get angry because your mother-in-law criticizes you, be aware that she is not actually the cause of your stress. You are causing yourself stress by the way you react to her.

The good news is that, although you can’t change her behaviour, you can change yours. So here is a step by step method for using heart energy to reduce stress. We’ll take the mother-in-law scenario as an example.

Acknowledge your feeling of anger or frustration or whatever it is, and resolve to do something about it. (About the feeling, not your mother-in-law.) You are making a choice here.
Let go, as best you can, of any justification you have for that feeling. However entitled you may be to feel stressed, you are the one hurting. Let go, if only for a few moments, of that justification.
Also let go of any judgement about her or the situation in which your stress arose.
Step right into your stress and really wallow in it for a few seconds.
Now, open your heart and embrace the stress. If it is an habitual stress, say ‘hello, old friend, here we are again.’ Really surround the stress with love, peace, compassion, even beauty. Let your heart smile. Let it sing even! And rest in that heart energy for as long as you have time. Allow your heart to heal you. It has an infinite capacity to do this.
Check your stress level. If it is still noticeable, go through the cycle again. It will only take a minute. Allow yourself that minute.

It is as easy as that to let go of your stress. And your relationship with your mother-in-law will probably change too. Because you have changed.

So remember, dear Reader. Be head strong. Be heart strong!