We all know that looking after our heart is essential for our physical health. But did you know that your heart also talks to your brain? In fact, the heart sends more messages to the brain than it receives.
As individuals we operate like finely tuned ecosystems. There’s two-way communication between our brain and our heart. Our heart has its own cardiac nervous system consisting of 40,000 neurons which create heartbeats sending messages to the brain. Positive emotions lead to a smooth coherent heart rhythm which calms our brain and our body.
Much like communication between two individuals, how our hearts talk to our brains really matters. When we get stuck in feeling anger, fear, jealousy, bitterness, sadness and shame we send toxic messages to our brains that become a vicious circle of corrosive energy. We have “bicker” internally. When our heart and mind are engaged in a warm, friendly interaction we experience “heart-brain coherence”. This builds resilience.
Our heart also has a memory. We know this from heart transplant studies. Recipients of heart transplants inherit donors’ memories and report changes in personality, identity, preferences and their emotional memories as a consequence. It is suggested that hearts, like other transplanted organs, transfer their memories to recipients via cellular memories. But it’s also been suggested that memory may be transferred energetically or via intracardiac neurological memory. In short, we store our experiences within our bodies, not just our mind.
So those negative communications our hearts send to our brain aren’t just for the moment. They are enduring.
Feel the love
Even more amazingly, how our hearts communicate can have a direct impact on others. When we sit in a room with someone else, our ecosystem extends beyond our body. The heart’s electromagnetic energy field is 5000 times greater than the brain’s and it influences our own bodily rhythm. But it can be also detected via ECG (electrocardiogram) in another person sitting nearby. Studies show that it extends three metres out from our body.
When we are with someone with a living, beating heart who is experiencing positive emotions for us, we literally feel their love. When we are full of love and compassion, others feel our warmth and positivity too. When our hearts are shrivelled up in pain, the communication is more barren.
Have a heart-to-heart
Of course, we can’t feel good everyday, but there’s evidence that practising experiencing emotions such as love, kindness, excitement and joy in our heart can be nourishing. It helps us cope with stress and changes how we think and feel about ourselves in a positive way.
This is why many therapists advocate for practising self-compassion. Many people are their own harshest critics. Many of us find it difficult to be kind to ourselves when we experience feelings of inadequacy or self-reproach. But the more we spend time cultivating feelings of love in our heart, the easier it is for us to stay not just emotionally but also physically healthy.
I learnt during 25 years of working among toxic emotions in prisons and forensic hospitals that practising experiencing loving kindness really can help. I witnessed some of the most damaged and hurting people – men who had manifested their distress in awful acts of extreme violence – begin to heal through the process. And every day now, I see it working in my private practice in Oundle, and it touches my heart.
Listen to your heart and encourage its positivity. Make a habit of practising kindness not just for the benefit of others, but for your own psychological health.
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Dr Naomi Murphy is an Oundle-based clinical and forensic psychologist and co-host of the acclaimed Locked Up Living podcast.
