# HeartMath Institute

The HeartMath Institute (HMI) is a research and education organization founded by Doc Childre and located in Boulder Creek, California, United States. The institute conducts research into the function of the heart and the role they believe it plays in parapsychology. Most of their recommended treatments fit under some tradition of alternative medicine like energy medicine and integrative medicine, and their research is often published in journals devoted to these topics.
The institute has a for-profit counterpart named HeartMath LLC, which sells various techniques and devices that purport to increase "heart coherence". This work has been accused of being a pseudoscience and is listed under the quackwatch index of questionable treatments. A review by the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technology failed to find independent systematic reviews or meta-analyses that support the efficacy of HeartMath treatment programs, though additional federally funded trials are ongoing.

## Beliefs
### Coherence

The institute has claimed that the heart plays a central role in regulating emotions, and that various measures of heart physiology are correlated with ailments like hypertension and cognitive decline. Most importantly, they have introduced a concept they call "heart coherence" defined as a state of synchronization between the heart, respiratory system, and a heart rate variability pattern. They claim that by achieving a coherent state, one can gain various psychological and spiritual benefits like lower stress, better decision making, and the ability to cause a shift in the global consciousness at certain points in the solar cycle. There's no scientific consensus about whether achieving a state of coherence does anything useful or that achieving it through HeartMath devices has any beneficial effects. Some studies have showed a positive effects of HRV bio-feedback on mental health, but a literature review indicates these benefits are likely due to the subject relaxing, rather than a specific psychological mechanism like coherence.

### Heart Rate Variability

The institute has developed a device that measures heart rate variability (HRV), which they claim can be used to lower stress. They also believe the device can measure heart coherence, and that achieving this state can increase various measures of well-being. The device received a positive reception from some technology-focused websites, though a review published by the James Randi Educational Foundation argued that the institute's speculative research about the alleged spiritual benefits of their device was "starting with a result and trying to conduct research to prove the result they already believed in", which is that the heart has "powers beyond anything we can measure with modern technology".

### Energy Medicine

The institute has claimed that the heart emits an energetic field that carries emotional state information capable of being detected by nearby systems, that all living things are interconnected by the electromagnetic field of the earth, and that the heart's field is coupled to a "field of information that is not bound by the classical limits of time and space". Neurologist Steven Novella criticized the institute's re-branding of energy medicine on sciencebasedmedicine.org, referring to it as "Cargo Cult Science". He argued that HeartMath research is an example of how research methods can be misused to support a favored hypothesis, and that the institute had failed to provide any evidence that the supposed benefits of coherence could be differentiated from the benefits of relaxation.

### Parapsychology

The institute has claimed that increasing coherence can amplify various intuitive abilities. For example, in a 2003 study, the HeartMath director of research claimed to have telekinetically caused DNA in a beaker to unwind by bringing his heart into a state of coherence, staring at the beaker, and willing it to unwind. He also claimed to have replicated this experiment from a half-mile away. The institute's claim that the heart is capable of precognition at a meeting of the International Positive Psychology Association was subsequently criticized by psychologist James C. Coyne for failing to meet the basic standards of reproducible science. He questioned why HeartMath had failed to put its more speculative research through peer review and concluded that it was lucrative pseudoscience.

### Quantum Mysticism

The institute is a proponent of quantum mysticism, a set of ideas that attempts to appropriate quantum mechanics to provide a scientific basis for spiritual beliefs. More specifically, HeartMath research has claimed that the principles of non-locality and holography can help explain heart's supposed precognitive abilities. In a 2011 study, they claimed to have demonstrated that entrepreneurs can intuit future events using the electromagnetic properties of their heart, that this effect is amplified by a state of coherence, and that the effect could be used to anticipate ideal investment amounts for startups. They subsequently argued that this effect was explained by the transmission of "quantum-holographical" information received by the heart over the earth's magnetic field information from the future.

## Contracts and grants

| Year(s) | Organization | Entity | Type | Transaction Description | Amount |
| 2004 | U.S. Department of Education | HeartMath Institute | Grant | TestEdge program | ~$1,000,000 |
| 2010 | U.S. Navy | HeartMath LLC | Purchase Order | EmWave devices | $203,455 |
| 2011 | U.S. Navy | HeartMath LLC | Purchase Order | EmWave devices | $965,743 |
| 2010-2022 | U.S. Department of VA | HeartMath LLC | Purchase Order | HeartMath trainings | ~$40,000/yr |
| 2019 | U.S. CDC | NORC | Grant | HeartMath for resiliency | $1,049,996 |
| 2023 | U.S. NIJ | FSU | Grant | HeartMath for jail staff | $498,491 |

## Projects
### Global Consciousness Project

The institute maintains a global network of random event generators in support of the Global Consciousness Project (GCP), a parapsychology experiment based on the hypothesis that world events can cause emotional disturbances in the "global consciousness" which will be measurable as non-random patterns in the data collected from the network. Proponents of the GCP have claimed that it is supported by a large amount of statistically significant data, while detractors have argued that the supposed results are artifacts of confirmation bias.

### Global Coherence Initiative

The institute also maintains a network of induction coil magnetometers that they use to monitor geomagnetic activity. The stated purpose of this network is to "to quantify the impact of human emotion on the earth's electromagnetic field and tip the global equation toward greater peace". They believe the earth's magnetic field facilitates unified communication between the heart's of all living creatures and that their detectors can monitor the "global coherence" of this unified system.

### Tree Rhythms Project

The institute also maintains an array of sensors monitoring the electromagnetic activity of selected trees around the world. They've hypothesized that these fields carry "biologically relevant information" that can provide evidence for their theory claiming that these fields unify and interconnect all living creatures as part of the global consciousness.