Listening to Your Heart

What does it mean to listen to your heart and how does it affect creativity? I wanted to bring in a unique scientific perspective.

I recently took a course with HeartMath Institute where I learned about the science and practice of accessing heart intelligence to improve quality of life and create personal, social, and global transformation. It was a tall order for them to teach, but they definitely delivered.

HeartMath has been doing scientific research into the heart for over 30 years. They specialize in heart-brain communication but also the electrophysiology of intuition and how all things are connected. They released a book call “Science of the Heart” that you can read for free on their website here.

One of my biggest insights was that sometimes I need to slow down my body’s physiology in order to bring my heart rhythm and brain’s electrical activity into sync. When the heart and brain are at a high level of synchronization, research has supported this as being the state of intuition, creativity, and optimal performance. I bet artists are tapping into this state when they’re creating “outside the box.”

To slow down my physiology I found breathing more slowly helped. For me breathing 5 seconds in followed by 5 seconds out was shown to help bring my heart into a more coherent state. (There is technology to measure this!) Being coherent means that the body is being efficient and regenerating, increasing digestive and immune system responses, producing proteins to heal tissues, creating hormones to help balance and restore the body, etc. Basically the opposite of what happens when we get stressed.

Also emotions like kindness, appreciation and patience were shown to increase heart coherence and brain efficiency, which makes sense because (fun fact) there are actually more signals running from your heart to your brain than the other way around. And when focusing on those emotions specifically, breathing also naturally slows.

My whole point is that maybe being more productive in life which seems to be a common goal, is really about slowing down a bit. Being able to come up with creative solutions and be an insightful person actually happens when we react calmly or with heartfelt emotions. This space is where we can fully listen to our heart and actually pay attention to what it is telling us. We may need to slow down a bit to hear what it has to say.

If this interests you, I definitely recommend reading more about HeartMath’s research and technology. I am not affiliated with them, just a fan!