In his book, Healing Without Freud or Prozac, Dr Servan-Screiber, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist, explores seven natural treatment approaches that help the body’s own healing mechanisms to recover from anxiety and stress.
The training in this workshop focuses on a self help technique that enables the heart and emotional brain work together to establish a pattern of coherence in the heart-brain system. Put simply, you will learn to talk to your heart and teach it to calm down.
This is different to the type of meditation in which you empty your mind and withdraw from the world for a beneficial break. While conventional meditation of this kind is a very useful well-being tool, cardiac coherence is another tool for managing stress with the heart, anywhere, at any time.
Research has established that chronic stress produces anxiety and depression. The negative impact stress has on the body include insomnia, wrinkles, high blood pressure, palpitation, back ache, skin and digestive problems, chronic infections and more, all caused or worsened by stress. Stress affects social relationships and work performance. How often do we hear the term, burnout, used to describe a collection of damaging stress related symptoms?
We often focus on stress as an external factor – if only I could change my life I would feel better. The dream of the better “if only”, the holidays, the retirement, the new job.
Cardiac coherence turns the problem on its head. Instead of focusing on the external problems, we begin to control our own inside physiology and we automatically feel better. We find our relationships, our performance and our well-being improve as a by product and we have a better grip on our external circumstances.
Software programs that measure heart-brain coherence demonstrate that the heart instantly reacts to one’s emotional state. However this workshop also demonstrates it is perfectly possible to create coherence without a computer and immediately feel benefits in daily life. As with all new skills, practice makes perfect. This workshop is about learning some practical techniques. All the science behind these techniques is well documented in Dr Servan-Schreiber’s book, published by Rodale as part of the New Medicine of the Mind series.
Who is in charge?
Your brain?
Or is it your heart?
It is now clear that the cognitive, rational brain is only part of the whole story. The sensations and subsequent chemistry of your heart and emotions have a major impact on the way you behave, your health and wellbeing. By recognising this, by taking control of your inner state, you will improve your ability to cope with external stress. Training in cardiac coherence brings a knowledge from within, a connection with your intuitive self. Mastering coherence can lead to a greater capacity for compassion and connection with others and a calmer, more balanced life when facing it’s challenges.
Basic steps to Coherence
Two deep relaxation breaths
Stabilised breathing through the heart 10 – 15 seconds
Breathing in life force and breathing out negativity
Free your heart – give it love, attention, life force, relaxation
Use your imagination to connect with a blissful experience
a loved one
a pet
a place in nature, real or imagined
God
a feeling of positive recognition
a feeling of gratitude
a feeling of achievement
Hold this blissful emotion eg love, gratitude appreciation, in your heart.
When you feel a glow in your heart and a gentle smile on your lips, coherence between your heart and mind is established.
