UNDERSTANDING THE HEART IV

[continued from the Last Post.]

Research in the field of neurocardiology has found that the heart is the strongest biological oscillator in the human system. This is very much like the strongest pendulum in a collection of clocks, where the largest pendulum has the strongest rhythm and pulls the other pendulums into sync with it.

This phenomenon is known as entrainment, and has been repeatedly found to be prevalent throughout nature. In the human system, the heart initiates entrainment, whereby the rest of the body’s systems are pulled into harmonising with its rhythms.

The Institute of HeartMath reports that this is typically manifested when we’re in a state of deep love or appreciation. In this condition, it has been seen that the brain synchronises (attains harmony) with the heart’s harmonious rhythms. Amazingly, this state of head-heart entrainment occurs precisely when the heart rhythms complete one cycle every ten seconds (i.e. a frequency of 0.1 Hz).

We therefore come to appreciate that our optimal functioning capacity is experienced when we’re in entrainment. This suggests that we need to constantly strive for a balance between EQ and IQ, by intentionally altering our emotional state via specific techniques. Input from the heart to the brain would thus be modified for attainment of mind-body balance.

Neurocardiology is a new discipline that emerged during the last two decades. It combines the study of the nervous system with the study of the heart.

In ‘Physiological Correlates of Emotion’ (Lacey,J & Lacey, B.) reference is made to some autonomic-central nervous system interrelationships. It has been noted that a burst of neural activity is relayed to the brain in sync with every beat of the heart. This matches Joseph LeDoux’s (The Emotional Brain) report on the work of Dr.J.

Andrew Armour of Dalhousie University in Halofax, Canada, where he introduced evidence of a functioning heart brain ~ the “brain in the heart.” From the perspective of the neuroscience, it has therefore been recognised that the nervous system in the heart is sufficiently sophisticated to qualify as a little brain in its own right.

With every beat of the heart, a burst of neural activity is relayed to the brain. The brain in the heart senses hormonal rate, and pressure information, translates it into neurological impulses, and processes the information internally. It then sends the information back to the brain in the head via the vagus nerve and nerves in the spinal column. These same nerve pathways also carry pain and other feeling sensations to the brain. The nerve pathways flowing from the heart to the brain enter the brain in an area called the ‘medulla’, located at the base of the brain.

[Excerpted from the 'Lifescaping' seminar participant's manual. The 'Lifescaping' seminar is conducted by Dilip Mukerjea about four times a year under the auspices of the Singapore Institute of Management.]