How to build resilience and activate your larger intelligence with coherence technology

By HeartMath® and Dr. Rollin McCraty

Today, students are under a tremendous amount of stress. The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that colleges and universities are seeing a generation of students who appear to be manifesting increased signs of depression, anxiety and stress. Managing stress is a learned ability and learning to manage educational stress while building resilience will carry students a long way over their lifetime.

To manage the pressure, here are some things you can do:

1. Shift to Ease at the Onset of Stress. Learning to shift to a state of inner ease at the onset of challenging situations can help prevent and eliminate many unwanted predicaments. The Inner-Ease technique will make it easier for you to navigate through many challenges. Practice it a few times each day for several weeks, so it will become a natural part of the daily routine.
   • Step 1: Heart-Focused Breathing: Focus your attention in the area of the heart. Imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your heart or chest area, breathing a little slower and deeper than usual. Suggestion: Inhale 5 seconds, exhale 5 seconds (or whatever rhythm is comfortable).
   • Step 2: Draw in the Feeling of Inner Ease: With each breath, draw in the feeling of inner ease to balance your mental and emotional energy.
   • Step 3: Anchor and Maintain the Feeling: Set a meaningful intent to anchor the feeling of inner ease as you engage in your projects, challenges or daily interactions.
2. Take advantage of HeartMath®’s resilience building technology: Inner Balance™ App and Sensor for iOS & Android devices- a fun and innovative approach to de-stressing and improving wellness. It helps you change your reaction to stress, gain insights in your shifting moods and create a more positive outlook on life.

HeartMath® founder Doc Childre created this coherence technology to help people activate their larger intelligence. Here are some highlights of what occurs as you use the Inner Balance™, to inspire your practice:

• Regular daily practice with coherence tech will prepare you for more effective living whether your coherence scores are high or low. Practicing heart rhythm coherence with Inner Balance coherence technology for even a few minutes has a carryover effect into your next conversation or activity. The carryover effect can facilitate more flow and clarity during day-to-day communications and activities — moving in a state of ease and choosing your actions and reactions rather than mechanically responding in the same old stress-producing ways. 
• When people have a lot of mental work to do – and most of us do – the practice of using coherence technology can give you a smoother mental ride. Heart rhythm coherence activates higher centers of the brain that enhance compassion and the desire to help others develop their higher potentials.
• Getting into HRV coherence for five minutes or more at the start of your day accumulates higher vibrational energy, which translates into more consciousness (and effectiveness) in your interactions and intentions. Look at using coherence technology like a gas tank you are filling as you practice increasing your coherence. Heart rhythm coherence releases neurochemicals that lift your emotional system and help clear your thinking.  In higher vibrational energy we have increased capacity to manage our energies, actions, and reactions, and we experience more synchronicities and clearer choices. 
• Studies have found that with simple regular use of coherence technology, people increase their coherence baseline (the amount of coherence naturally occurring in their heart rhythms when at rest). Raising your coherence baseline can support behavior changes you want to make. As your baseline increases, it benefits your health, wellbeing and happiness, and adds empowerment to your intentions.
• Many people who use the Inner Balance during meditation say that the coherence feedback saves them time and energy because it signals them when they drift or spin out of focus (which we all do at times) and signals them when they’re back. The coherence feedback especially helps them learn to slow their thoughts and emotions into a smooth rhythm, so that their internal systems can operate more in sync. This strengthens the connection with the heart’s intuitive feelings and guidance. 
• Increasing heart rhythm coherence during meditation helps to align and coordinate thoughts and emotions with your heart’s intuitive guidance, so that mixed agendas or mixed signals don’t scramble the mind. This translates into increased clarity and effectiveness. You can use coherence tech to set an intention then align your heart (feeling) with your visualization or affirmation (thought) to create the highest outcome. As heart energy is added to intention, it aligns you more with the power of your spirit. You add power to your intentions, visualizations, and affirmations. As you activate the coherent power of your heart, it brings your heart, mind and nervous system into alignment to magnetize the highest best to you and your facilitation of others.  
• As you strengthen your experience of coherent heart feelings, such as love, appreciation, care, compassion, kindness, etc. and breathe them into your system while using coherence tech, you can purposefully imprint them into your intentions for better health, genuine communication, clearer thinking, creativity, anything you want to improve. Practicing this heart-coherent alignment helps clear old negative patterning stored in the cells, releasing more power for creative intention and manifestation from your true self.

Interesting in learning more on this subject and obtaining a degree in Natural, Holistic, Alternative, and Integrative medicine? Enroll in Our Natural Medicine Degree Programs today!