You may think you are keeping heart healthy if you take cholesterol medication, eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly.
I would like to suggest that in addition to those good ideas, you can learn from heart meditation some very simple yet very healthy practices that will benefit your heart.
Just thinking about your heart is a great start. Try to bring your awareness to your heart area right now. Direct your inner glance to the area in the middle of your chest. See if you can feel it beating, but don’t worry if you don’t. Just imagine your heart beating in your chest.
Heart Breathing Technique
Now start breathing more slowly and deeply. Allow your breath to gradually deepen and become more rhythmic. Just follow your inhales and exhales and make your breath conscious.
Now imagine that your heart is breathing and that the inhales and exhales are going in and out of your heart.
Now think of something or someone or some place that you really appreciate. Hold that feeling of appreciation or gratitude in your heart space, while continuing to breathe rhythmically.
Stay with this for 3-5 minutes and see how you feel afterwards. You may notice a more relaxed or centered feeling. This is now part of your practice of keeping heart healthy.
Heart Coherence Practices
Heart coherence refers to a state of heart rhythm and heart resilience. When your heart is beating coherently it is beating a very rhythmic and steady beat. The depth of your breath tends to be deeper as well and this brings good oxygen into your blood stream.
Heart coherence is a state of resilience in your heart that can be learned and practiced daily. You feel better, you feel you have more control over your emotional state and your heart beats in a smoother and healthier way that reduces stress or eliminates it altogether.
Heart Meditation
Meditation can be learned and used to supplement cardiovascular recommendations, diets, or other healthy programs. For those without heart disease, healthy heart meditation may be enough to change Type A, stressed out personalities into relaxed and happier people.
Using meditation for keeping heart healthy is not a new or revolutionary idea but – until now- hasn’t been widely used, in spite of research showing its effectiveness. But, many cultures have long-embraced the heart as the center of consciousness and focus for meditation.
Did you know that the heart actually functions independently of the brain and transcends the ego? Extensive studies of heart intelligence reveal that the heart has its own central nervous system and doesn’t just receive orders from the brain as previously thought.
It truly works at the heart level, with amazing benefits that are physical, emotional, and even spiritual. Having an open heart is such an important element to keeping heart healthy.
Heart focused meditation can be learned online quite effectively, through the use of audio, video and written instructions and practices.
In practicing heart meditation we want to value our emotions. It is perfectly normal if you experience different emotions while practicing. Notice any emotions that arise and think of sending your breath into your heart on every exhale. Just don’t act on any emotions during the practice.
Tension may ebb and flow from the body and new, perhaps unfamiliar, emotions may take their place. In a world where it is all too easy to build defenses, compassion and love can be buried as well. In our heart meditation practices we seek reality. We move towards emotion, instead of away. And remember that you are always in control of the experience through control of your breath.
Allowing meditation to open your heart can bring wonderful possibilities. Peace, love, compassion, joy and even a certain vulnerability may be present.
Instead of engaging in thought patterns that stress the heart, you can learn to allow your thoughts to be influenced by the love in your heart.
Reducing Stress
It is a lack of understanding of how to address emotions that is a major cause of today’s stress epidemic.
Stress is so hard on the heart.
It pays you to find new ways to manage your stress. I am recommending meditation and heart coherence practices on this website for your benefit.
We think the mind rules. But most of the time it is our emotions that determine our choices and behaviors.
One way of keeping track of all the feelings and changes that come up in meditation is by keeping a journal. Those who practice heart healthy meditation are often surprised to read of the transitions that take place.
Months later, you may go back and read your journal in grateful amazement at how much better you feel and the new peace you have found through meditation.
Learning how to meditate can be a vital addition to keeping heart healthy and transforming your stress, making it easier for you to let go of unhealthy behaviors. You’ll feel better because you are better.
