Enter 'The zone'

An air of mystery surrounds ‘The Zone’, a near mythical state of mind-body alignment which athletes seek but few master. Rupert Sheldrake (author and biologist) suggests that sport may be one of the few remaining ways for people to experience an altered state of consciousness.  Sport requires: total concentration on the ‘present’; dedication; discipline and a will to explore and stretch beyond normal physical and mental capabilities. These qualities are all elements of committed spiritual practice potentially leading to similar experiences.

HeartMath® research suggests that this flow state is about heart-brain synchronisation achieved by connection with your intuitive heart.  When we do this over and over, with intention, it gradually becomes easier. We begin to understand it’s not a one-shot experience but a place we can train ourselves to enter at will.  There is a formula to get there to become physically, mentally and emotionally coherent. When we are coherent we are present, we think clearly, react intuitively and can play great sports.

The biofeedback from HeartMath® technology helps to build awareness of how our different emotional states affect the rhythmic pattern of heart activity.  It gives real time information on your heart rate variability (HRV) which is a measurement of the time intervals between consecutive heartbeats. 

Physically active individuals tend to have a higher HRV and this is associated with better health status. Athletes (recreational and professional) with a high HRV can respond, flex and adapt to the demands of their training and sport more easily.  But like most things in life it’s about balance and sport has a positive and negative relationship with HRV.  Your heart-beat is affected by your respiratory/cardiac cycle known as respiratory sinus arrhythmia or RSA. The sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) is activated to cope with the demands of sport or exercise. If this exceeds available resources then vagus nerve function will diminish, negatively affecting our RSA and HRV. 

Teaching people to sustain positive emotions facilitates emotional and psychological coherence, enhancing mind-body co-ordination and shortening reaction time.  Tiger Woods was once asked during a championship game if there was a specific area players should look out for.  His response “No, not really.  I think the guys who are really controlling their emotions are going to win”.  I remember some years ago watching my son play football and thinking how much time and energy the players were wasting on emotions like frustration and anger at referee’s decisions or missed goals.  At the height of competition the ability to manage emotional reactions, make clear decisions and trust your intuition is often the difference between winning and losing.

Studies have shown that coherence can spread through entrainment, so team chemistry may result from a kind of collective team coherence or resonance. Perhaps a shared sense of energy, rhythm and intuitive knowing occurs to generate interaction and a successful team outcome. High school teacher and basketball coach Beth McHamee included HeartMath®  techniques in their training.  Before each game the team did a Heart Lock -in® and they used Quick coherence® on court and at half time. They ended the season with a record 15 wins compared to the previous six.

In Sweden hockey players trained in HeartMath® have used the techniques to switch from a chaotic to coherent emotional state when they are in the box watching the game.  This has improved their game observation ability but in addition they improved their physical stamina. Master Kelly (World Martial Arts Champion) also found benefits outside of his sport.  He used

HeartMath® techniques to maintain his edge to fight whilst competing in a younger competition category. He also used them to relax and handle stress from competition and travelling as well as to overcome injury setbacks and spark creativity and focus when writing his book.

HRV training and biofeedback have also been shown to play a useful role in the psychological response to injury and the rehabilitation process. The techniques can help them to deal with their roller coaster of emotions and the inevitable pain catastrophising which can become predictive. Compared to controls the HRV trained subjects lowered their respiration rates and improved on all psychological outcomes.  Their perceived level of control increased with the opportunity to become an active participant in their treatment.

Get in touch to learn how to use the Heartmath® biofeedback technology and techniques to tackle those situations where you react emotionally rather than respond intelligently. 

Experience science-based technology and coaching for taking charge of your life.

Proven to help you reduce stress and anxiety by increasing your inner balance and self-security.

Learn to access your heart’s intuition to become the best version of yourself more often.

“The brain thinks, but the heart knows” Joe Dispenza (neuroscientist) 

Helen Maxwell

HeartMath® certified coach

www.helenmaxwellnutrition.co.uk

Helen@helenmaxwellnutrition.co.uk

REFS

Perry, J., et al. (2018) Effectiveness of athletes’ mental strategies in maintaining high heart rate variability: Utility of a brief athlete-specific stress assessment protocol, ‘Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology’, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1123/jcsp.2017-0016

Ravi, S., et al. (2018) Heart rate variability: biofeedback and controlled breathing, competitive and recreation sport athletes, 2nd International conference on lifelong education and leadership for all, Latvian Academy of Sport Education, pp.413-418.

Rollo, S., et al. (2017) Effects of a heart rate variability biofeedback intervention on athletes psychological responses following injury: A pilot study; International Journal of Sports and Exercise Medicine, 3(6) DOI: 10.23937/2469-5718/1510081.

Sheldrake, R., (2019), Ways to go beyond and why they work: 7 spiritual practices for a scientific age, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.

Connect to your heart to be your best self

There is a physical as well as a mental component to fear and anxiety.  We know this: our hearts race, we sweat, our stomach churns, eyes dilate. Dr Bessel Van der Kolk, eminent psychiatrist and a world expert on traumatic stress, explains in his book ‘The body keeps the score’, how the body records and stores our emotional experiences.

I once experienced this first hand.  Many years after a traumatic hospital experience, I took my son to a GP surgery.  Within seconds, I could feel my body going into a panic attack, something I hadn’t experienced for over 5 years. I couldn’t understand why this would be happening until I looked around and saw a doctor who reminded me of the event.  What amazed me was that my body reacted before I actually saw him.

Sarah Garfinkel of the University of Sussex, UK, also discovered this when she was working with Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans to understand the brain circuitry involved with trauma. She realised it was their bodies which were influencing their minds and, no matter how safe they were in reality, their body continued to express fear until it became their way of being. So she set out to discover the ‘mind-body’.

Incredibly Garfinkel found that “ signals from the heart can really drive and override conditioned fear responses”.  This is the ‘scientific principle’ behind the success of Heartmath®  techniques. They have been used for over 30 years to teach people to listen to their heart and to intercept the body’s messages to the brain in order to improve autonomic nervous system function.

Our internal organs, including our heart, generate electrical activity which is conveyed to the brain by our neurons.  Science now knows that the electromagnetic field of the heart is sixty times more than that of the brain, whilst it’s magnetic field is an enormous 5000 times more.  Incredibly the field of the heart extends outside the body and can be measured across the room so people around you feel, and respond to, your ‘heart waves’.  The number of signals travelling from the heart to the brain vastly outstrips those going in the other direction and their effect on brain function is significant: cognition, memory, perception, emotion, problem solving.

Back in 1991, Doc Childre, after setting out to understand both the physical and the metaphorical heart, founded Heartmath®. He did this by testing, measuring, researching and analysing data to provide scientifically validated tools to access the heart’s intelligence. Doc Childre combined forces with Deborah Rozman, who, whilst studying ‘attitude change theory’ at University, discovered that people would receive different answers about the same issue, depending on whether they listened to their heart or their head. Together they researched and developed the powerful HeartMath® tools and techniques.  They used their deep understanding of heart-brain dynamics to teach people to take back their power over their emotional well being. Over 300 peer reviewed papers show that when you live, work and play from the heart, you influence your physiology on many levels (nervous, immune, hormonal), to transform stress, raise your energy and improve well-being.

Get in touch to learn how to use the Heartmath® biofeedback technology and techniques to tackle those situations where you react emotionally rather than respond intelligently.  

Experience science-based technology and coaching for taking charge of your life.

Proven to help you reduce stress and anxiety by increasing your inner balance and self-security.

Learn to access your heart’s intuition to become the best version of yourself more often.

“The brain thinks, but the heart knows” Joe Dispenza (neuroscientist) 

Helen Maxwell

HeartMath® certified coach

www.helenmaxwellnutrition.co.uk

helen@helenmaxwellnutrition.co.uk

Refs:

Spinney, L., (2020), Body Consciousness, New Scientist pp.29:32;

Childre, D & Rozman, D. (2005) Transforming stress: The Heartmath solution for relieving worry, fatigue and tension; NewHarbinger Publications Inc; Oakland;

Van der Kolk, B. (2014) The body keeps the score, Penguin.

Dispenza, J. (2017) Accessing the heart’s intelligence, www.joedispenza.com.