Eat smart and exercise regularly: That’s what people generally believe to be a successful formula for maintaining a good supply of energy to do the things they want to do and to have long and healthy lives. There’s no debate: This formula is a great start, but millions of people who subscribe to it nevertheless find their energy drained by the end of the day or work week. Take a closer look and you’ll learn why this happens to so many: Ever wake up and almost immediately begin dreading your day because you’ve got a load of work at the office, a meeting scheduled with someone you’d rather avoid or you have a million things to do and believe things will never change.
How many of these thoughts and emotions have you had before you climb out of bed? At a time when you’re supposed to be rested and ready to venture forth, you’ve already begun spending precious energy and your day has barely started. (See our Recommendations).
It turns out, researchers at the Institute of HeartMath and elsewhere have shown, our thoughts and feelings are as important or perhaps more so than the food and drink we consume. It is our mental and emotional diets that determine our energy levels, health and well-being to a greater extent than most people realize.
"As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery… we have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace. The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger, attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion and a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness."
—Dalai Lama
The processes by which the body’s systems are maintained, repaired and regenerated, though biologically complex, are easily grasped intellectually: When we have negative emotions such as anger, anxiety and dislike or hate, or think negative thoughts such as "I hate my job," "I don’t like so and so" or "who does he think he is," we experience stress and our energy reserves are redirected. Processes that break down the body’s energy stores for immediate use are activated to confront our stressors at the expense of those that maintain, repair
and regenerate our systems. When our energy reserves are constantly redirected into the stress pathway, we frequently don’t have enough left for the normal regenerative processes that replenish the resources we’ve lost, repair damage to our bodies and defend us against disease. Over the long term, stress depletes our bodies’ systems and can severely damage our health and age us faster, mentally and physically.
In contrast, when we activate the power of our hearts and intentionally have sincere feelings such as appreciation, care and love, we allow our hearts’ electrical energy to work for us. Consciously choosing a core heart feeling over a negative one means instead of the drain and damage stress causes to our bodies’ systems, we are renewed mentally, physically and emotionally. The more we do this the better we’re able to ward off stress and energy drains in the future. Heartfelt positive feelings fortify our energy systems and nourish the body at the cellular level. At HeartMath we call these emotions quantum nutrients.
"We live in deeds, not years: In thoughts not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heartthrobs. He most lives who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best."
—Aristotle
Recommended
A HeartMath TIP: Take a few minutes with this simple Asset/Deficit Balance Sheet to track your emotions and thoughts to see where you’re spending your energy.
On the top half of a sheet of paper, write "Assets." On the bottom half, write "Deficits." As you make your lists, be prepared to consider the effects on family, work and personal balance, and the negative consequences of each event.
Under Assets, list the positive events, conversations and interactions of the past few days, things that made you happy and gave you energy. Write how each asset, including ongoing ones – the quality of interactions with your friends, family, working environment, etc. – made you feel.
Under Deficits, list issues, conflicts and events in the period that were negative or draining, including conversations and events that turned from good to bad, for whatever reason, and how they made you feel.
Now, step back and, from the heart, note which deficits could have been neutralized or turned into assets at the time and still could be turned into assets, look for repeating patterns and write your insights and conclusions.
Adapted from the Asset/Deficit Balance Sheet available in various HeartMath materials, including the book The HeartMath Solution, by Doc Childre and Howard Martin, with Donna Beech.
You and Your Energy: Key Points
Our mental and emotional diets determine our energy levels, health and well-being much more than most people realize.
Look at life as an energy economy game. Each day, ask, "Are my energy expenditures – actions, reactions, thoughts and feelings – productive or nonproductive? During the course of my day, have I accumulated more stress or more peace?
Keeping an asset/deficit balance sheet even for a few days will give you an extremely clear picture of where and how you’re adding to your energy account and where and how you’re overdrawing it.
When we consciously evoke core heart feelings, we nourish our bodies at every level. Like quantum nutrients, core heart feelings keep our cells regenerating.
The Institute of HeartMath’s goal is to help you learn to generate emotional and mental coherence deliberately and on demand, so you ultimately spend more of your day at an optimal, regenerative level of energy efficiency.
Benefits of Intentional Emotions and Thoughts
Energy used for positive purposes and constantly replenished.
Look and feel mentally, physically, emotionally healthier.
Mental, physical aging reversed.
Outlook transformed to positive one.
Stress levels reduced.
Conversations, other interactions with people more relaxed, not draining.
Recommended
Tools For Increasing Energy
emWave® Personal Stress Reliever: Regular use of this scientifically validated, hand-held stress-relief technology has proven to be a vital tool in reducing anxiety, stress, anger, emotional chaos and boosting energy and vitality. The emWave® PSR is easy to use and noninvasive.
It will help you achieve heart coherence – synchronization between the heart and brain – and reach your optimal physical and mental potential and emotional balance. When your emotions are in balance, you stop the energy drain and start the energy gain. Then, by practicing the easy-to-learn techniques you’ll receive with your emWave PSR only minutes a day will help you revitalize and re-energize your mind, body and spirit anytime, anywhere.
emWave® PC / emWave® Mac Stress Relief System:† The emWave PC/Mac turns your computer into a self-contained heart-rhythm-coherence monitor and manager.
It let’s you see how thoughts and emotions affect your heart rhythms – negative ones pulling you down and draining your energy, positive ones lifting you up and allowing your body to perform its normal function of replenishing your energy. Discover how easily you can reduce your stress level and replace those negative emotions with positive ones that,
with a little sincere practice, can give you instant energy boosts and gradually help build a more invigorated you. Relying on 19 years of scientific research, the emWave PC/Mac, in tandem with key HeartMath techniques that you’ll receive and easily learn, will help you increase your energy and start living life more fully. † Formerly known as Freeze-Framer®.
Transforming Stress: The HeartMath Solution for Relieving Worry, Fatigue and Tension, book by Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman. Know the warning signs of chronic stress and find out about the latest research on your "intelligent heart" and its ability to help you immediately begin reducing the stress in your life. The stress-energy formula is a simple one: Less stress = more energy.
This book gives you several key HeartMath tools and techniques for transforming your stress habits, including the Attitude Breathing® tool, with step-by-step instructions on how replace those physically draining negative attitudes with positive ones. You’ll be amazed at the results: more energy, better health and a lot more.
Learn more…
Psychophysiological Correlates of Spiritual Experience: "Unmanaged mental, and particularly emotional, activity drains vital energy from our reserves, which we call the emotional energy accumulators, and creates disorder or incoherence in our bodily systems." Read more in this informative article by Doc Childre and Rollin McCraty about how our bodies respond when we intentionally experience positive emotions such as caring and appreciation or negative ones such as fear and anxiety.
The Heart in Holistic Education: Based on scientific research about our emotions and the intelligent human heart, HeartMath has developed many tools and technologies to enable students to improve academic and social emotional outcomes. This 2003 article in Encounter magazine by Lourdes Arguelles, Rollin McCraty and Robert A. Rees will tell you what you need to know about your children’s or your own learning capacity as you gain control over your emotions through "heart coherence."
