Make Time to Experience Love

By Jennifer Allen Newton, ReCODE 2.0 Health Coach, Facilitator for Care Partner Support Groups and Education Groups

Every time February rolls around, we are bombarded with messages of LOVE. Romantic love. Familial love. Pet love. Self-love. And, based on the amount of advertising being thrown at us daily, there’s no shortage of advice on how to show it. But sometimes, all the hoopla around Valentine’s Day makes it seem like love is something we do instead of something we feel.

As a ReCODE and care partner coach, I know that following Dr. Bredesen’s protocol requires us to “do” a lot. Particularly at first, before it all becomes truly integrated into our lifestyle, it can feel like every day is filled with a lot of boxes to check. Even though managing stress is one of the Bredesen Seven strategies, I often hear people say they’re “too busy” with everything else to engage in stress management practices. And, for care partners in particular, the whole idea of their own self-care too often gets lost in the flurry of helping their loved ones.

That’s why, during this month of all the love talk, I want to ask everyone to press the pause button on doing — even if it’s just for a few minutes each day — and spend some quality time steeping yourself in the most powerful feeling we are capable of: LOVE.

Being on the receiving end of someone else’s love is a beautiful thing. But cultivating the emotion of love requires only you. Whether it’s love for your sweetheart, your pet, or the giant oak tree you sit beneath at the park, you are the common denominator — you are feeling and experiencing the emotion. And that matters.

Love is a powerful emotion. It fuels some of our most positive experiences. It can be elusive and complex and difficult to describe in words, yet if you ask anyone on the planet where they feel love, they will, most likely, place their hand over their heart. This isn’t just a product of cultural messages — those messages exist because they reflect a deeper truth. The heart always plays a leading role when we experience love.

The scientists at the HeartMath Institute have made it their life’s work to study the heart, and their groundbreaking research has shown that our heart rhythms reflect our emotional states, both positive and negative. And the heart is itself a powerful regulator of emotions.

This is because the heart has its own tiny brain, made up of around 40,000 neurons that, like the brain in our head, can feel, sense, learn, and even remember. What’s more, that little heart brain communicates directly with the emotional centers in our head brain and the rest of our nervous system.

This means the heart is rather like a “brain whisperer” that can help the head brain interpret and process how we are feeling. (Actually, 90 to 95% of the nerves connecting the heart and brain carry information from the heart to the brain. So perhaps “brain shouter” would be a better term!) The point of all this geekery is this: the heart has a powerful influence on our emotional state, and the most powerful emotion the heart can feel is love.

Experiencing the feeling of love almost immediately brings our heart rhythm into what is known as coherence — a state that sends a positive cascade of electrical and biochemical messages to our brain and the rest of our body. This may make us feel exhilarated, or it may give us calm comfort. Either way, the experience of love is positive, profound, and beneficial to our health and well-being. It has been shown to reduce stress, lower blood pressure, balance hormones, and serve as a strong antidote to fear, anger, and anxiety.

HeartMath research also shows that our heart emanates a field of electromagnetic energy that can be detected by others and even produce measurable effects in a person several feet away. When we experience the deep, heartfelt emotion of love, it radiates from us. (This is also true for negative emotions — think of how many times you’ve walked into a room where an argument is taking place, and you can physically feel the tension in the air.)

When we take time to pause and truly appreciate how wonderful love is and to actively cultivate that feeling of love, we are healing ourselves and those around us. This is why practices like loving-kindness or “Metta” meditation have been used for thousands of years. And this is also why HeartMath practices can make such a profound difference in people’s lives.

That’s why I became a certified HeartMath practitioner. And it’s why, in honor of this month of love, I’d like to share one of HeartMath’s most useful tools: the Quick Coherence Technique. It can be used in a wide variety of situations, and you can choose to focus on any number of positive, regenerative feelings as you engage in this exercise — such as gratitude or appreciation — but I invite you to explore, experience, and radiate the feeling of love. HeartMath is effective because it taps into the heart-brain connection to bring you — and those around you — into a more coherent state. Click here for a guided technique, or follow the simple steps below.

Quick Coherence® Technique

It will be a heartfelt Valentine to yourself and your loved ones!