May 2022
How does your body feel when you are stressed? Does your heart pound? Blood pressure spike? Palms sweat?
What about your mind and emotions? Do you get “brain fog?” Short-tempered? Difficulty concentrating? Difficulty managing your emotions?
For me, yes to all the above. ESPECIALLY when I was taking care of my Mom. Every day was a rollercoaster- was today the day she was going to get sick or have a fall? Was she going to have behavior issues? What kind of red tape was I going to have to bust through to get her the care she needs? For the entire time Mom was battling dementia, I was in a perpetual state of stress. And that was WITH my well-established health and wellness routine.
Things changed when I started to attend Mom’s meditation group with her. The group leader led the residents through simple meditation practices, and he also taught them HeartMath techniques. I had heard of HeartMath but hadn’t tried it before. Sitting there in the library of Mom’s assisted living facility, I discovered this amazing technique that helped my stress levels even out in minutes. It was also really helping my Mom. The hallmark of her dementia was hallucinations and delusions. She lived in an anxious state most of the time, but HeartMath really helped her to become calmer.
I started to research HeartMath and before long decided to pursue a certification so I could teach the techniques to others. Now I integrate HeartMath into my health coaching practice and it has opened a new world of stress relief for the people I work with.
So, what is HeartMath? Very shortly, HeartMath is a way to tap into the intelligence of our hearts in order to bring our physical, mental, and emotional systems into coherence. When we are stressed our heart rates show it! There is a clear difference between a heart in coherence and a heart out of coherence. All the stress we carry can culminate in anxiety, anger, depression, sleep issues, and more. Conversely, learning HeartMath techniques brings about greater coherence in our physical, mental, and emotional systems and therefore helps to reduce anxiety, depression, and stress. It helps us to experience more joy, more patience, more energy, and more resilience. All things we desperately need, am I right?? I know I needed them, and HeartMath helped me get there. I became a better human as a result, and a more resilient person overall.
I teach a very simple HeartMath technique in the context of my overall coaching program, but I also offer a more in-depth HeartMath program on its own. We learn HeartMath techniques that build on themselves over the course of 4 sessions. If you would like to chat about HeartMath, I am here! Just email me to set up a free, 30-minute phone call. Until then, take care of you!
