Resilience Resources for Service Members, Veterans and Families
Below you will find both free and premium resources which effectively support Veterans, Service Members and their Families.
Resilience-Building Techniques
The techniques HeartMath teaches are intentionally designed to be simple, easy-to-use and adaptable to virtually any culture, setting or age group, regardless of religious belief or background.
Resources for Individuals
Service Members and Veterans
Building Inner Readiness
This HeartMath e-Book helps military personnel and veterans build resilience, stay calm under pressure, and restore emotional balance using simple, science-based heart coherence techniques for greater clarity, readiness, and well-being.
Tools and Techniques
Quick Coherence Technique Military
Designed for veterans, service members, and their families—this three-step technique helps you create heart coherence in about 60 seconds, reducing stress and draining emotions to achieve more balance, ease, and inner harmony.
On-Demand Mini-Courses
HeartMath Ed and Resilience Training
Free for Veterans, Service Members and their families, this course teaches research-based self-regulation techniques to build stress tolerance, resilience, mental focus, and composure—helping manage challenges including transition issues, sleep problems, and hyper-arousal.
Resources for Organizations
The Resilience Advantage™
The Resilience Advantage training helps service members build character, strength and resilience. As military personnel learn to “take charge” of and self-regulate their mental, emotional and physical energy, they are better able to handle stress reactions and develop more intelligent approaches to self-managing and renewing energy. As people increase their energy reserves, they can more easily prepare for stressful events and establish a cushion that prepares and protects them from the damaging effects of many common stressors. This enables them to perform at their best and sustain greater balance and operational readiness for deployment and day-to-day challenges.
Self-regulation and resilience-building techniques
Practicing the self-regulation and resilience-building techniques helps service members:
- Sharpen and maintain situational awareness.
- Increase mental clarity and flexible and focused thinking, especially under pressure.
- Improve reaction times and coordination.
- Reduce fatigue and sleeplessness.
- Reduce symptoms of operational stress.
- Strengthen connection to the mission, unit and team.
- Decrease friction in relationships and improve communication with unit and family members.
Resilience Advantage training programs can be tailored to suit tactical training windows. Introductory content can be delivered in two- or four-hour workshops. More thorough training can be delivered over one, two or three days. Programs can be delivered by HeartMath or certified military trainers.
Building Personal Resilience™
The Coach/Mentor Program is especially well-suited for support staff such as health educators in military resilience and family wellness centers. Building Personal Resilience gives staff a powerful set of tools to utilize in their initiatives for improving health and prevention strategies and personal performance.
Unit leaders who complete this program learn skills that are effective for mentoring the men and women in their units and ensuring their success in using HeartMath’s resilience and energy-regulation techniques and sustaining their benefits.
Benefits of Personal Resilience
Service members who take charge of their mental, emotional and physical energy experience a host of benefits, including increased:
- Resiliency
- Vitality
- Overall well-being
- Mental clarity for decision-making
- Emotional awareness
- Sensitivity to relational issues
- Ability to maintain composure in challenging situations
Health Professional Certification Program
The HeartMath Interventions Certification Program is designed for doctors, nurses, psychologists, counselors, social workers, therapists and other health-care professionals who want to add HeartMath tools and emWave technology into their clinical work with service members, veterans and their families. Health-care professionals who use the self-regulation techniques, protocols and technologies taught in the program guide service members and veterans in establishing a new physiological baseline that leads to sustainable perceptual, attitudinal and behavioral changes.
Benefits of Health Professional Certification Program
These easy-to-use, evidence-based tools, techniques and technologies have proven to be effective for a variety of emotional, mental and physical challenges. Regular use of emWave technology and the self-regulation tools has led to significant benefits stemming from stress reduction in military personnel with PTSD, chronic pain, anxiety, anger, depression, sleeplessness, panic disorders, irritability, mood disturbances, impulse control and substance abuse.
HeartMath’s research-based system of scientifically validated tools and technologies promotes internal awareness, self-regulation and emotion management. Your patients will learn how to regulate their nervous systems and develop valuable inner resources, self-regulation and self-responsibility.
This program includes effective treatment protocols for stress-related symptoms of trauma, PTSD, traumatic brain injury and more. It is used in numerous military facilities, veterans medical centers, PTSD clinics and substance-abuse and behavioral-health programs.
Research Papers and Articles
Heart Rate Variability and Cognitive Bias Feedback Interventions to Prevent Post-deployment PTSD
This randomized controlled trial tested pre-deployment resilience training (HRV coherence biofeedback and cognitive bias modification) in Army National Guard soldiers. Results showed significantly lower PTSD symptoms post-deployment in older soldiers, demonstrating feasibility of technology-delivered interventions.
Non-Pharmacological Intervention for Chronic Pain in Veterans: A Pilot Study of HRV Biofeedback
This pilot study tested heart rate variability coherence biofeedback in 14 veterans with chronic pain. Results showed significant increases in HRV coherence and reductions in pain, stress, negative emotions and physical limitations, demonstrating promise for non-pharmacological pain treatment.
Resilience Training Program Reduces Physiological and Psychological Stress in Police Officers
This study of police officers is relevant for Service Members. Coherence training reduced physiological recovery time after high-stress scenarios and improved autonomic nervous system regulation, helping officers maintain composure during critical incidents.
FAQs
Are HeartMath Institute resilience programs available for service members and veterans?
Yes. HeartMath Institute offers a range of free and premium resilience resources built specifically for veterans and service members, including the Building Inner Readiness e-book, the Quick Coherence Technique for Military, and the free H.E.A.R.T. (HeartMath Institute Education And Resilience Training) mini-course. These resources teach simple, science-based heart coherence and self-regulation techniques designed to help with staying calm under pressure, restoring emotional balance, and improving readiness.
Can military families use HeartMath Institute resilience resources?
Yes. HeartMath Institute’s core individual resources — including the Quick Coherence Technique for Military and the H.E.A.R.T. mini-course — are designed for veterans, service members, and their families together, since HeartMath Institute’s techniques are simple, adaptable to any age group, and not tied to any particular culture or belief system. This makes them practical tools that military families can use to support each other through deployment, transition, and everyday stress.
Can HeartMath Institute resilience training be used by military units or organizations?
Yes. HeartMath offers organization-level programs including The Resilience Advantage™, which helps service members build character, strength, and resilience while sustaining operational readiness, and Building Personal Resilience™, a coach/mentor program suited for health educators and staff in military resilience or family wellness centers. Unit leaders who complete Building Personal Resilience also learn mentoring skills to help their own unit members successfully use and sustain HeartMath Institute’s techniques.
How long are HeartMath Institute military resilience workshops?
Resilience Advantage training is built to fit tactical training windows, with introductory workshops available in two- or four-hour formats and more thorough training delivered over one, two, or three days. Programs can be delivered by HeartMath Institute directly or by certified military trainers, giving units flexibility to match training depth to available time.
What is the difference between HeartMath Institute military resilience resources and Army Master Resilience Training?
HeartMath Institute’s military resilience resources are a separate, non-Army program built around HRV coherence biofeedback and heart-focused self-regulation techniques, rather than the Army’s own Master Resilience Training (MRT) curriculum. HeartMath Institute’s page for military resilience training does not position itself as a replacement for or comparison to MRT; the two are distinct programs, and units interested in how HeartMath’s approach might complement existing MRT programming should reach out directly to discuss their specific goals.
What research supports HeartMath Institute resilience training for military personnel?
HeartMath Institute’s military-focused research includes a randomized controlled trial of Army National Guard soldiers that found HRV coherence biofeedback combined with cognitive bias modification led to significantly lower post-deployment PTSD symptoms in older soldiers, along with a pilot study showing HRV biofeedback reduced pain, stress, and negative emotions in veterans with chronic pain. HeartMath Institute also cites related research in high-stress professions, such as a study showing coherence training reduced physiological recovery time and improved composure in police officers during critical incidents.
How can military personnel use HeartMath Institute techniques during periods of high stress?
Service members can use the Quick Coherence Technique to create heart coherence in about 60 seconds, helping them reduce stress and draining emotions and regain balance in the moment. HeartMath Institute’s broader self-regulation and resilience-building techniques also help sharpen situational awareness, improve reaction time and coordination, reduce fatigue and sleeplessness, and reduce symptoms of operational stress during and after high-pressure situations.
Does HeartMath Institute offer resilience resources for military healthcare professionals?
Yes. The HeartMath Institute Interventions Certification Program is designed for doctors, nurses, psychologists, counselors, social workers, and other healthcare professionals who want to add HeartMath Institute tools and emWave® technology to their clinical work with service members, veterans, and their families. The program includes treatment protocols for stress-related symptoms of trauma, PTSD, and traumatic brain injury, and it’s currently used in military facilities, veterans medical centers, PTSD clinics, and substance-abuse and behavioral-health programs.
Are HeartMath Institute military resilience resources free or paid?
HeartMath Institute offers both free and premium resources for the military community. The H.E.A.R.T. mini-course is free for veterans, service members, and their families, while organizational programs like The Resilience Advantage, Building Personal Resilience, and the Health Professional Certification Program are premium offerings; specific pricing for these organizational programs isn’t listed on the page and is best confirmed directly with HeartMath’s training team.
How can a military organization bring HeartMath Institute resilience training to its personnel?
Military organizations can bring HeartMath Institute training to their personnel through The Resilience Advantage program, which is tailored to tactical training windows and can be delivered by HeartMath Institute or by certified military trainers, or through Building Personal Resilience, which prepares unit leaders and support staff to mentor resilience skills within their own units. Organizations interested in scheduling training or learning more about implementation should contact HeartMath Institute directly to discuss their unit’s size, timeline, and goals.
What HeartMath Institute tools are available to help military personnel manage operational stress?
HeartMath Institute’s military resources include heart coherence and self-regulation techniques such as the Quick Coherence Technique, HRV (heart rate variability) coherence biofeedback, and, in clinical settings, emWave® technology used by certified healthcare professionals. These tools are designed to help service members regulate their nervous systems, renew mental and emotional energy, and reduce the symptoms of operational stress, both in the moment and as a sustained practice.
H.E.A.R.T.™ HeartMath Education And Resilience Training™ Mini-Course
The H.E.A.R.T. mini-course incorporates research-based self-regulation techniques and technologies that have been shown to increase personal resilience, mental focus and personal performance and decision-making. Here we discuss the unique challenges facing veterans and service members and practical steps for taking charge of their mental, emotional and physical systems.