Breathing to Connect Ourselves — On The Topic Of“ Heart-Brain Coherence”
After spending time in a health workshop, Dr. Wayne Phimister brings you the key to use your own breathing as a method to induce a heart-brain connection that may help you through your healing process.
While I was working a few weeks ago at a workshop in Vancouver, which was held by Dirk Terpstra (who has been trained in Northern California and is nowadays working for the HearthMath Institute), I came with the idea of sharing an interesting and practical topic that may benefit you at the time you are going through a chronic pain process.
What happened there is that I felt reconnected with the knowledge base that I had read nearly a year ago from HeartMath Solution, a book written by Dr. Childre and Howard Martin, two leaders in the field of mind-body medicine that were trying to find health benefits — not just pain benefits — of connecting your heart with your brain.
Therefore, heart-brain coherence — very close to mind-body connection — has something to do with the heart, something to do with the brain, and the connection established between both.
I truly feel that is necessary to share this information with you as you can incorporate it into your meditation times or whenever feel comfortable during the day.
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What you have to do is very simple:
When you pause your day, all you have to do is to breathe deeply through your nose. After that, count five seconds and then exhale through your mouth for another five seconds. Repeat this cycle, slower and slower.
What happens is that your parasympathetic nervous system is being triggered, and that also triggers many effects in your body like the decrease of your heart waves, which can be seen on an electrocardiograph or electrical monitor that can be picked with your heartbeat.
Going through this parasympathetic response leads you to get a smooth curve that goes up and down in this electrical register. That shows that you are in a heart coherent state, and what HeartMath Solution’s studies demonstrate is that if you are in a heart coherent state, you are also in a brain coherent state.
This has been successfully exposed by many mapping the electrical conductance of the brain and the associations with the heart. As a result, you get that smooth sinusoidal wave pattern which reflects coherence and a time of healing for your body.
“This is not even meditation” said Dirk in the workshop, and he was right.
When you go through meditation or you simply focus on your breath for around twenty minutes, you induce your body to go into a relaxation state. However, if you slow down your heart rate a few minutes a day, only by counting from one to five at the time you inhale and exhale, you are inducing this relaxation response in you, which will be associated with your parasympathetic nervous system.
This is easier than you think. It is at the palm of your hand. Because of the rushes of the daily life you are running out there from one place to another, constantly busy and constantly stressing your body.
If you can take a few minutes to pause, take a break, maybe drink a cup of coffee, read a book or anything you feel pleasure doing; and take a deep breath, slowly, and slower, you will introduce yourself into a genuine heart-brain coherent state that will improve consistently your experience through chronic pain.
Well that’s it for today. What interesting topics would you like me to cover in the future? Leave a comment below! And if you like this article, give it a like.
Dr. Wayne Phimister Resources:
Dr. Wayne Phimister is a family physician and associate professor at the Department of Family Medicine at the University of British Columbia in Canada
VISIT: Homepage (Get in touch)
READ: Conquering Chronic Pain: Solutions and Strategies for People Who Have Given Up Hope (now available on Amazon)
LISTEN: Pain Solutions For The 21st Century with Wayne Phimister featuring experts from the the world of chronic pain treatment.
