Re-air: The Practical Health and Energetic Benefits of Heart Coherence with Dr. Rollin McCraty [Episode #849]
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This weekâs topic is: Re-Air: The Practical Health and Energetic Benefits of Heart Coherence with Dr. Rollin McCraty
I am so excited to have my very special guest, Dr. Rollin McCraty, who is director of research for the HeartMath Institute, and a co-author of the book, Heart Intelligence; Connecting with the Heartâs Intuitive Guidance for Effective Choices and Solutions. Listen in as Rollin shares what heart coherence is and why itâs so important, how incoherence disrupts sleep, the benefits of coherence, and so much more.
TOPICS COVERED
- What heart coherence is and why itâs so importantâŚ
- Incoherence that can disrupt sleepâŚ
- Benefits of coherenceâŚ
- Emotional regulation and its relation to coherenceâŚ
- Coherent and not peaceful versus being peaceful and coherentâŚ
- How to be more productive without the rushed energyâŚ

About Dr. Rollin McCraty
Rollin McCraty, Ph.D., director of research at the HeartMath Institute, is a professor at Florida Atlantic University, and a psychophysiologist whose interests include the physiology of emotion. One of his primary areas of focus is looking at how emotions influence cognitive processes, behavior, health and the global interconnectivity between people and Earthâs energetic systems. His research on heart rate variability and heart-rhythm coherence has gained international attention in the scientific community and is helping to change long-held perceptions about the heartâs role in health, behavior, performance and quality of life.
He is one of the primary creators of the Global Coherence Initiative and the principal designer of the Global Coherence Monitoring System and its international network of magnetic field sensor sites. He is a member of the American Autonomic Society, Pavlovian Society, National Association for Psychological Science, Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback and Society for Scientific Exploration.
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Transcript:
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
Kimberly: 00:00 Namaste, loves and Merry Christmas. I am so excited to be here with you today to personally wish you over the airwaves, the mest of Christmases May, the Spirit of Christmas, which for me is about joy and peace and connection and unconditional love rise up in you, in your life, in your family, in your environment. And I wish that for the collective as well. And because of this energy of Christmas, the Christmas Spirit, I am bringing back on our show today, we are airing this amazing show which is in accordance with this one of my favorite shows of the year, the Practical Health and Energy Benefits of Heart Coherence with Dr. Rollin McCraty. The ways in which I believe we can access true unconditional love is through the power of the heart. Each of us has an amazing energetic and physical heart, and Iâm really leaning into this work.
01:11 This is a big part of the next book, hint, hint. And we actually did a heart aligned meditation study with Dr. Rollin McCraty, who is from the Heart Math Institute. Heâs the director of research, heâs a brilliant scientist. And we did a study around a heart-based meditation, which I will be airing for you free publicly on the website. Weâll be offering the tracks. And itâs a very specific type of embodied meditation where we take some of the techniques of Yogananda and we pair it with some of these heart coherence techniques for really being able to go into create this heart awareness and heart guidance. And we measured the participants of the study physically, their HRV, we measured their with very sensitive equipment, heart math sensors, and there was a 29% increase in coherence over four weeks. So what this means is that when we go into our hearts, we can create real change in our lives.
02:18 Coherence means clarity, better decision making, finding better solutions, feeling more calm, feeling more emotionally in control, more emotionally intelligent, feeling, more love, peace, these heart-based emotions. So thereâs science to this. Itâs very much connected to spirituality, the energetic heart. So on this Christmas day, I wanted to bring this forward to you. Whether this is the first time youâre hearing this podcast or you heard it before, todayâs a perfect day to go into your heart and to bring forward some of these tools and awarenesses so that love can rise up in your life as well as, again, clarity, focus,
Kimberly: 02:59 Better decision making. So I send you so much love. Without further ado, letâs get right into our show today with the incredible Dr. Rollin McCraty.
Interview with Dr. Rollin McCraty
Kimberly: 01:42 Rollin, thank you so much for being back on our podcast. You were back here I think a year ago, and since then you and I have had a lot of contact together. We have,
Roland: 02:12 And Iâve enjoyed every minute of it.
Kimberly: 02:14 Me too. Iâve gone up to see you guys at HeartMath, which has changed my life quite honestly. Learning about all the amazing research that youâve been doing, Roland and the rest of the team around heart coherence and integrating it into my life has had such a profound impact. Itâs such a big part of my upcoming book. You and I have actually done a research study together and thereâs this amazing global coherence conference, which weâll get into in just a moment as well.
Roland: 02:46 Indeed. Lots
Kimberly: 02:47 Of stuff. Lots of stuff. Lots
Roland: 02:48 Of stuff.
Kimberly: 02:49 So letâs backtrack a little bit. I came across a lot of your research. Youâre the head of research director of research at HeartMath. When I was doing research, actually Roland for my last book, which is called You Are More Than You Think You Are. And I started going into it and I said, why doesnât everybody know about this? Why donât people know about Heart Coherence? And then I reached out to Debbie, whoâs the c e o, and we made contact and I started learning about the HeartMath tools and trainings and I started to incorporate into my daily life. And what Iâve noticed, Roland is feeling very intuitive, more calm, and just this centeredness, which is what I think we all want. So can you explain a little bit how that works? I know you can go on and on. Roland is one of the most brilliant scientists in the world, but maybe in the simplified sense for a busy mom or anyone thatâs just running around trying to get the most out of their day. Why does this matter?
What heart coherence is and why itâs so important
Roland: 03:54 Okay, let me, the question, thereâs so many ways to answer that question, Kimberly. Well, let me start by saying that I think it is really helpful to understand that itâs our emotions that run the show in sociology. Whatâs going on in our brain, our nervous system, our hormonal system. For example, just getting frustrated for even a minute or two sets in motion, 1400 biochemical changes in her body that deplete energy. And that was one of our early studies showed suppresses the immune system for up to six hours. And thatâs not even getting angry. Iâm just talking about frustration and impatience, these kinds of feelings. Now on the other hand, when we feel good, we walk out the door in the morning and we go, oh, Iâll call it that sense of what a beautiful day temperature blue skies, that feeling we have.
Kimberly: 04:53 Yes,
Roland: 04:54 We may not think it to ourselves or say it to ourselves, but weâre feeling appreciation.
Kimberly: 04:59 Itâs
Roland: 04:59 That feeling right or that feeling when we connect with somebody in the heart, we just have that great connection to someone or we feel real compassion for what we may be seen on the news rather than being angry about it. That also sets in motion all these biochemical
Kimberly: 05:17 Change
Roland: 05:17 Activity in our nervous system, and we call those regenerative emotions versus depleting emotions. I just wanted to set that context because thatâs so important in the amount of energy we have. At the end of the day, this is really important for a mom whoâs looking after youngsters as you well know. Kimberly.
Kimberly: 05:36 Yes, Roland, let me ask you a question. You said that anger, and I loved that study, and the graph is very powerful when you see how anger for five minutes can throw off your hormones and affect your immunity for six hours. We get a lot of questions here about sleep and people feeling anxious at night and not being able to sleep. So what are some of the things, the emotions or the incoherence that can happen in the evening that throws us off watching the news or,
Incoherence that can disrupt sleep
Roland: 06:04 Well, letâs go back to what you were just saying.
Kimberly: 06:07 Yes
Roland: 06:08 And well known in the stress research world, and one of the first symptoms of stress is sleep disruption.
Kimberly: 06:16 Yes.
Roland: 06:18 Okay. And itâs the carryover effect of all those small activities or feelings we have throughout the day because those biochemical changes like cortisol, we all know, well, maybe not everybody knows cortisol, itâs nicknamed the stress hormone. It is kind of the top of the food chain because it sets in motion lots of other things. It modulates d n a, and we donât have to get into the biochemistry here, but basically if we pulse extra cortisol into our system that we didnât really need to because we added a little extra drama or a little frustration, those feelings around the small things,
Kimberly: 06:58 Those
Roland: 06:58 Effects last for hours. So sleep disruption is really what we do throughout the day and those carry over effects of what weâve done to our biochemistry and our nervous system activity.
Kimberly: 07:09 Wow. Yeah. Sorry Roland, go ahead.
Roland: 07:12 Well, so one of the best things we can do is get coherent, which is the first question you asked me,
Kimberly: 07:17 Right? Yes.
Roland: 07:19 So I wanted to set the stage Kimberly for that because boy, thereâs so many ways to go into this. Letâs start with that. The heart sends more information to the brain and the brain sends to the heart, and the heart is clearly involved in our, Iâll call it our emotional system as is the hormonal system, the brain of course, and all these different systems. I mean, why do we say I love you with all my heart. Iâve
Kimberly: 07:44 Never
Roland: 07:45 Known anybody to say I love you with all my brain. I probably wouldnât go over very well. So we intuitively and instinctively know thereâs something about the heart thatâs more than just a pump.
Kimberly: 07:56 Yes.
Roland: 07:56 Thatâs involved in what we tend to think of as the emotions. We want more of wisdom and these types of things. Well, and actually the science is backing that up in a very powerful way. So when we feel those degenerative, not degenerative, but depleting emotions, frustration and impatience and anger and hate, and especially those kinds of strong emotions like that, that froze the activity in our nervous system literally out of sync. And thatâs reflected in the rhythm of the heart as what we call an incoherent rhythm. Itâs all chaotic and jagged. You can actually see this in real time with simple little devices. Otherwise, when weâre feeling those regenerative emotions, weâre connecting, right? We are now. We feel good about that. That creates coherence in our heart rhythms. And itâs what that simple little measure of looking at the beat to beat change in our heart rate, which creates our heart rhythm, is reflecting a lot of really deep information about whatâs going on inside of our body. So as I said, the heart sends more information to the brain. Now when weâre in those incoherent rhythmic patterns, that information is going up to every major brain center and it causes the neural activity and all the neurons in our brain to get out of sync. And thereâs a name for that. Itâs called cortical cortex. Top of our brain that we get paid to go to work for is inhibited. This is why itâs the physiology, Kimberly, of why I can say it two ways. The plain speak way is why anger makes us stupid,
09:40 Or I can say it more nicely, why otherwise very intelligent individuals and people can make inefficient choices when theyâre emotionally upset. But itâs the same thing.
Kimberly: 09:53 Amazing.
Roland: 09:55 Youâve never done that, right, Kimberly?
Kimberly: 09:56 Oh gosh. I know when we start talking about emotions, Roland, there is a lot of guilt. Sometimes we feel like, oh man, I shouldnât have gotten angry or I shouldnât have done this or that. But at the end of the day, weâre all trying our best. And thatâs why I think these tools are really powerful because itâs giving us, I feel like a different point of strength and power. So what happened, Roland, I want to make this distinction when you talk about H R V, because thereâs a lot of devices out there, but, and Iâm not a big tracker person, but I started learning about coherence. Then I went up and saw you and the team and it was amazing at HeartMath, and I said, Hmm, Iâm interested in actually tracking myself. And so HeartMath has this amazing tool called the mwa mwa Pro
Roland: 10:46 And Inner Balance is probably the more
Kimberly: 10:48 Inner balance which you can get on their website. And they also have an amazing app. And what I saw on my computer screen, Roland, was this proof. Because sometimes we think, well, I donât know, like you said, itâs this feeling. But then when we can see it through the HeartMath tools, we think, oh, itâs actually working. So this isnât something that you can track from some of the more popular devices out there, like the rings you wear and things like that. I want to make that distinction first. And then the second thing, Roland, is I said to myself, Iâve been meditating for years and Iâve been teaching people to meditate and Iâm a student of yoga Nanda, and itâs amazing. Sometimes people need that discerning look at the research. This is actually doing something for me if Iâm going to spend my time, if Iâm going to get up half an hour earlier and do this.
11:37 So then I said to you all, I said, letâs test the coherence. So we created something together called the Heart Align Meditation, which is taking yoganandaâs amazing meditations and then some of the HeartMath tools. And then you and your amazing team helped me put together this study of 30 people in LA and it was, we wonât get into all the data now weâre going to make these tracks available for people who want to try the meditation on our site. Rolling. But it was taking people through and it was even after four weeks doing the meditation, which was only eight minutes, four times a week, peopleâs ability to go into coherence went up 29%. And which is significant. We think about all these benefits. Weâre talking about more energy. Can you get into some of the other ones, Roland? With coherence, thereâs more clarity, more intuition. The more coherent we become, weâre not wasting energy.
Benefits of coherence
Roland: 12:30 Exactly. Itâs really our capacity to self-regulate. Maybe a cleaner speak way of saying that is to take charge of our emotional diet. Itâs really amazing. A lot of us would get into, and itâs appropriate to pay attention to what we eat and drink and get exercise. Those are of course important things. But if people spent a 10th of the time regulating and paying attention to their emotional diet that they do to their food diet, the benefits would far outweigh reading labels.
Kimberly: 13:06 Wow.
Roland: 13:07 Total. Yeah. And again, Iâm not taking away from that. Thatâs important. But again, itâs emotions that run the show and what we call stress is always an emotion. Itâs always the feeling. Right.
Kimberly: 13:22 And also, Ronan, a lot of people, weâre talking about coherence and heart brain communication in our society today. Thereâs so much around nootropics and brain training, and weâre not saying the brain isnât important, but weâre saying that these two organs can be in sync. And that makes a big difference with your emotional wellbeing. Well,
Roland: 13:40 Exactly. I mean, anybody get me wrong here? Iâm not putting down the brain or the mind. I want one and I want it to work really well.
Kimberly: 13:48 Yes,
Roland: 13:50 It has to in my line of work. But also saying that the heart and brain, in fact, if weâd look physiologically whatâs going in in the body, the heart and brain are in constant communication with each other. And theyâre more inner wired together through our nervous system than any other systems in our body. We really have to think of it as a system, a heart brain system. Itâs not the brain or the heart. How theyâre communicating the quality of the communication and how in sync they are together. Now it looked like you were going to ask something.
Kimberly: 14:26 So Liz and Roland today, thereâs a lot of discussion around mental health and we talk about negative thoughts. Do you believe that this emotional regulation, which can come from coherence, informs the thoughts and therefore absolutely part of mental health?
Emotional regulation and its relation to coherence
Roland: 14:40 Yeah, this isnât just a belief. This is well established in
Kimberly: 14:42 Neuroscience.
Roland: 14:43 In fact, we have emotionally responses. Iâll call âem before we even have the thought in a lot of the thoughts. We have our mind trying to justify what we already felt.
Kimberly: 15:00 Does
Roland: 15:00 That make sense to you?
Kimberly: 15:03 And memories in our amygdala, right? Past reactions
Roland: 15:06 That gets into the physiology of it all.
Kimberly: 15:08 Okay, wonât go down there by,
Roland: 15:10 You can go down that path if you want. But I think for most listeners, well, what do I do about this? And step one is become more self-aware. Pay attention to what we are feeling. And we talk a lot about baselines as you know. In fact, your studies showed a shift in baselines of your participants, which is an awesome finding by the way, that theyâve really trained their nervous system into a new, more optimal state through these practices. But things like impatience, letâs just say, Iâll pick on impatience for a minute. Itâs big, itâs huge. But we donât even know. Weâre feeling it because itâs become so familiar that it no longer becomes a conscious awareness.
Kimberly: 15:54 Itâs normalized.
Roland: 15:56 Well, exactly. Itâs part of our normal experience. It doesnât get our attention anymore. And we can talk about all the emotions. Anxiety is another one that happens for a lot of people. We just have, Iâll call it a tone of anxiety and running around in our consciousness or impatience
16:15 Come so familiar. Thatâs where we need to kind of slow down and take a little look inward to really become more self-aware. And if we find ourselves running more of those depleting, Iâm call âem frequencies. They really are at the energetic level. So we can also measure, thatâs another topic, but then we can shift those and thatâs where we start taking charge. And especially becoming the meditation that you did in the study is awesome. And we teach heart lock in as a meditation, and thatâs only part of the story. We want to do that because training the nervous system to that as a new familiar state, but itâs really about catching those under the radar or sometimes way above the radar, big reactions throughout the day,
Kimberly: 17:04 Especially
Roland: 17:04 Of sleep and shifting them right in the moment. So itâs not just about meditation.
Kimberly: 17:09 No, itâs
Roland: 17:09 Part of the formula, but itâs about that moment to moment self-awareness and shifting our emotional system throughout the day. We get cut off in traffic or where you hit a traffic jam. What do most of us do? Frustrated and patient, right?
Kimberly: 17:28 Hours. Yeah. Is
Roland: 17:29 That making the traffic move any faster? Of course not.
Kimberly: 17:34 Exactly. We canât control so many things. Our child has a huge temper tantrum in the middle of the restaurant. The flightâs delay two hours. So thatâs why I think this is so powerful and important for people to know about Roland, is that yes, we can meditate in the beginning of the day and the end of the day like I do. But then thereâs this whole swath of time in the middle, and when I started learning the coherence tools and going into it, it started to create these shifts so that you stay in more of that centered state, this coherent state,
Roland: 18:06 Especially when the chaos out there is amped up. Because thatâs the whole point. Being able to maintain, we can call it our heart centeredness or our composure in the middle of the chaos of the world.
Kimberly: 18:21 And right now, Roland, thereâs a lot of upset obviously with world news and a lot of things are happening on a collective scale. And I can even sense in people around me that the baseline level of stress is amped up very much and thereâs so much out of our control. And
Roland: 18:40 Control is whatâs going on in us.
Kimberly: 18:42 Exactly. Exactly. And one of the things that I know HeartMath teaches and some of the amaz
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