The HeartMath Institute explains what heart coherence is:

“From a physics perspective, when we are in a coherent state, virtually no energy is wasted because our systems are performing optimally and there is synchronization between heart rhythms, the respiratory system, blood-pressure rhythms, etc.”

There are countless studies that confirm the importance and power of heart coherence: when you create this state for yourself, your body and mind function at their peak capacity as your heart beats at its optimum level. According to HeartMath, when we are in a coherent state, virtually no energy is wasted because our systems are performing optimally and there is synchronization between heart rhythms, the respiratory system, blood-pressure rhythms, and so on.

What’s more, it has been found that the best way to achieve heart coherence is through rhythmic breathing and by creating feelings of gratitude (“The Science Of HeartMath” n. d.).

Benefits of Heart Coherence include:

• Increased emotional regulation (Appelhans & Luecken, 2006).
• Unlocking intuition and creativity (Tomasino, 2007)
• Reduce blood pressure (Alabdulgader, 2012)
• Pain management (Berry et al., 2014)
• Stress management (Sarabia-Cobo, 2015)
• Resilience to negative experiences and emotions (McCraty & Zayas, 2014)

Gratitude, Compassion, Empathy, and Love

You can also help strengthen the effects of heart coherence by combining the feelings of high vibrational stats like gratitude, compassion, empathy, and love. Combine those feelings with focussing you attention on your heart area.

 A great side effect of this is that you will increase your levels of serotonin and dopamine, which make you feel good and serve some other really important functions.

This is another reason we speak so much about gratitude in SOMA Breath. Not only is it a good practice for generally feeling happier and more content in your life, it also facilitates heart coherence. Gratitude is also shown to physically change the brain.