Intuition, Stress, and our Hearts and Brains
Tags: Life, Brain, Heart, Self Improvement, Intuition

How paying attention internally can lead to dramatic results.

Image by Erzebet

T he more we grew older and interacted with society, we began to develop more patterns and recognition of our outside world. In the classroom, we don’t speak unless granted permission. If so, that could lead to trouble. If you raised your hand and answered the question wrong, you felt the social shame of being incorrect. If you did not score high enough on a test, you were considered a failure. And if you did not fit in, you were an outsider. As social creatures, to fit within our social constructs, we developed our constructed selves.

Introduction

We live in a stressed-out society, constantly anticipating an unknown future. One day, we experience utter bliss, but the next, we’re facing a global phenomenon. On an individual level, our lives are continually fueled by stress, leading to less than optimal decision making. So is it possible for us to handle our stress and still make thorough decisions? Is it possible to do this without buying any more tools, gadgets, or merchandise?

Surprisingly, the answer is yes. We all have two resources that can help us transverse this chaos filled reality. However, we first must be aware of these and then decide how to implement and utilize them.

The following article focuses on the Heart and the Brain. How the two work in unison to achieve a flow-like state allowing us to be “in the zone.” Also, we’ll discuss how the impact of a stressed society has on the Heart and Brain. We’ll discuss how they also help make up our Ego’s, our personas, and how we can incorporate our experiences into a balanced individual.

The Heart — More than we know.

Have you ever paid attention to your heart? Unless you have an active heart condition, probably not. We go about our daily lives, doing everyday tasks, with as much as a moment’s notice to take time to monitor our heartbeat. Why should we? After all, we don’t monitor our kidneys, lungs, or livers. We have so much to do in our external world (work, school) to monitor our internal world (Heart, organs). However, new research shows that if we pay attention internally, this can help transform our world externally.

In his book Human Heart, Cosmic Heart, Dr. Thomas Cowan lays out his argument as to why the heart has been misunderstood for centuries. If you were to ask anyone what the heart does, you would most likely get the response of “pump blood through the body.” Dr. Cowan argues that the heart is not a pump as we have come to know it, but something of a more celestial value. The heart’s mechanics defy physics and seeing the heart as mainly a pump is incorrect and undervalues the impact that this organ brings. With solid arguments to support his theories, the main takeaway is that our heart connects us to the entire cosmos.

Others have pointed to this fact as well. For more than 25 years, HeartMath Institute has been researching and learning how the heart influences our perceptions, emotions, intuition, and health. Their research shows humans are connected and controlled by the Earth’s energetic fields.

“The resonant frequency of the Earth’s magnetic field, these field line resonances is exactly the same as the human heart rhythm when we’re in a coherent state.” — Rollin McCraty, Ph.D. Director of Research, HearthMath Institute.

What does that coherent state look like? This state can be described as that calm, cool, and collected state that we rarely experience. Some call it “flow” or being “in the zone.” In this coherent state, research shows that our Hearts and Brains are in unison. Later in the article, we’ll discuss this point when we discuss the brain, but this coherent state starts in the heart, influences the brain, and unites the two towards our intuition. Intuition is defined as “the power or faculty of attaining direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference.”

Ever had that gut feeling where you knew something was going to happen. Or you know the right answer? Studies show that our heart’s intuitive sense can also be measured by “physiological changes in the body as well.” This information takes us back to Dr. Cowan, as he points out, “The heart acts as a conductor in the body and other organs entrain or pick up rhythms from it.”

If we knew the heart did all these, it’s safe to say we would pay more attention to it. We’d notice the little uptick in our heart rate when we’re stressed. How happy we feel when we engage with specific individuals. Previously, we’ve brushed these instances off to the side; however, they may show us more to that interaction than we know. To summarize, intuition, that keen sense of knowing without knowing, relies on the Heart and Brain in unison. With this introduction to the Heart, we’ll shift our attention towards the Brain.

The Brain — The Body’s Auto Processor

Our Brain. The most powerful computer known to man. The best part of this organic machinery is that we all have one (as hard as it is to believe at times), and we can use it to great lengths. Here, we’ll learn about the Brain and how it directs our body.

One of the Brain’s best capabilities, which is the focus of our discussion, is its ability to recognize patterns. Pattern recognition is how we learn. By associating a beginning to an end, an input leading to an output. We sit on the chair because patterns tell us that we won’t fall. We open doors because patterns inform us that the door will open. If the door does not, we know it must be locked due to previous experiences with locked doors. We interact with our world in a series of patterns, and these patterns lead to associations. Depending on how impactful they were to our bodies (exemplifying extreme joy, sadness, anger, etc.), these associations become imprinted within our brains as memories. Patterns, habits, routines are the lifeblood of how we interact with our world, and it all starts with our brain.

In addition to pattern recognition, which can be attributed to a subconscious aspect of the brain, we use our brains to think. We use it to process information. We use it to create. We use it to make daily choices. These processes get attributed to the conscious aspect of the brain. Our brain associates our internal thought processes with how we are going to interact with the external physical world.

At this point, it behooves us to learn about the three parts of the brain. As Humans, we have a Reptilian Brain, a Mammalian Brain, and our Human Brain. Our Reptilian Brain is in charge of our survival mechanisms. This brain is where fight, flight, or freeze occurs. Our Mammalian Brain provides us with our emotions. Our Human Brain is in charge of reasoning and rationale.

The key takeaway is that our brain, comprised of its three parts, operating in pattern recognition and association, have forged monumental aspects in human history. These aspects are attributed to our human brain, as this part of the brain allows us to enter into that flow-like state, that coherent state. Where we are focused, “in the zone,” and everything is processed according to plan. Unfortunately, we spend roughly 10% in our human brain, and we spend the other 90% in our lower brains, mammalian and reptilian. This decreases our ability to operate in a calm, coherent manner in a disheveled society.

Throughout this article, our goal is to learn more about how we can achieve this state of coherence within our brain. How to utilize our brain to its full potential. How we can stay within the human aspect of the brain, versus the animalistic aspects. Ultimately, this article’s objective is to understand how to develop these tools (Heart & Brain) to our advantage, increasing our ability to focus, think intelligently, and produce coherent outcomes despite the stress around us.

The greatest tools are being misused

The greatest hazards posed by any tools result in misuse

We’re now familiar with the Heart and Brain. These two in unison connect us into this flow-like, Zen state of mind and body. Unfortunately, this Zen-like form occurs once every blue moon due to our oblivious misuse of these resources. Focusing on the Brain, we’ll see how patterns and the brain parts work together.

In the 1890s, a researcher named Ivan Pavlov discovered that he could condition dogs to salivate at will. This conditioning was done using the brain’s pattern recognition, which is also available in mammals. In his experiment, he would ring a bell prior to feeding the dog. Through repeated experiments, he was able to train the dogs to associate the bell with getting fed. This led to the dog’s body producing internal reactions to prepare itself to get fed, such as salivation.

We, humans, are subject to the same kind of association and reaction technique as the dogs in this study. Take, for example, our cellphones. We know that once our phones light up with a “notification,” i.e., “the bell,” we have received something, i.e., “food.” Our bodies prepare to receive the food or in this case, check the notification. This is a simple cause and effect correlation.

However, in our modern society, we are inundated with notifications everywhere. Our cell phones, our emails, our calendars. These digital devices are continually signaling to the body that “it’s time to eat.” These constant stimulations and constant eating lead to a predominant state of expectation. That consistent state of anticipation leads to a persistent state of stress. Picture the dog in Pavlov’s experiment and his reaction if a different bell went off, signaling food every two minutes. This dog would be in a state of constant duress. Now imagine how we humans are as we attempt to function in our external world with constant signals. Pretty hard to be productive.

Unfortunately, due to our persistent nature, we try our hardest to do two things at once. We try to pay attention in classrooms while responding to text messages. We try to come up with creative solutions while simultaneously responding to Facebook messages. We try to be social with our friends while scrolling through Instagram. We’ve developed a term for doing two things at once: Multitasking.

Unfortunately, the brain cannot multitask. While we think we are multitasking, what’s happening is that the brain is unconsciously switching its attention from one task to another; this is known as “task-switching.” For example, paying attention in the meeting, to another task, responding to the text message. On. Off. On. Off.

Consequently, with this daily routine of task-switching, we make decisions that impact our lives. We make life decisions based on, off, on thinking. In this constant flickering of brain synapses, we are not inflow. We are incoherent.

As stated earlier, when in a coherent state, our heartbeats rhythmically. To reiterate Dr. Cowan’s work earlier, “The Heart acts like a conductor in the body, and other organs entrain or pick up rhythms from it.” In this mode of constant off, on switching, our Hearts are in an incoherent rhythm, affecting the brain and the entire body. When incoherence is happening within our bodies, there is no room for any mental thought processing. This incoherence leads to mental fatigue. Our brains have no space or energy to process essential thought functions from their starting point to conclusion.

To deal with decisions that need to be made, that information is processed between our reptilian brain (i.e., is this situation life or death) to our mammalian brain (i.e., how do I feel about this situation). With such rapid-fire thinking, we never let that thought process make its way to our human brain, our source of reason and rationality. In order to increase the opportunity to utilize our human brain, we need to ensure we make decisions, not with our brains, but with our hearts. To help us do this, we need to become familiar with the concept of ourselves. This concept is the difference between our constructed and discovered self.

The Constructed Self versus The Discovered Self.

When we were younger, our hearts and brains worked in unison. We could sense the love from our parents and could sense immediate danger. As we grew, our brains began to take more of an active role in our development as we interacted with the world. We started to associate patterns with inputs and outputs. If we sat on the chair, we would sit and not stand. If we opened the door, unless locked, it would open. If we cried for attention long enough, we would get tended to.

The more we grew older and interacted with society, we began to develop more patterns and recognition of our outside world. In the classroom, we don’t speak unless granted permission. If so, that could lead to trouble. If you raised your hand and answered the question wrong, you felt the social shame of being incorrect. If you did not score high enough on a test, you were considered a failure. And if you did not fit in, you were an outsider. As social creatures, to fit within our social constructs, we developed our constructed selves.

Our constructed self is how we interact with the world around us. This constructed self is also known as our Ego. Based on our experiences growing up, we’ve adapted to social norms. We don’t speak unless granted authority, and we don’t move until it’s our turn. The more we adjust our behaviors to fit the social construct, the more our brain adjusts our thinking to that of our social construct.

Unfortunately, in our over-stimulated environment, our constructed self has adjusted to such. Our brain has adapted to making decisions between life and death and how we feel about the situation with our reptilian and mammalian brains. This is how 90% of our thought patterns occur within our animalistic areas. Fortunately, we can revert this by returning to who we were when we first entered this world, Our innate, intuitive, authentic self. That leads us to the introduction of our discovered self.

Earlier, we discussed growing up and intuitively knowing the difference between love from our parents and danger in our surroundings. Over time, this intuitive knowing was replaced by the pattern recognition that helps us navigate social conditions. However, to truly be one whole individual, this is where we begin to bring out our discovered self. Our discovered self is who we are at our very core. Our preferences. How we see the world. That innate soul that was too young but now has enough information to navigate this social construct of life. However, the challenge is to bring that innate self from the shadows, where it’s been this whole time, to the forefront.

The Discovered Self is in the shadows because the Constructed Self has been at the forefront. This is due to the society that we have been born into, which conditions us towards a social norm. And as we traverse the social landscape, we take on more social norms that further remove us from who we really are at our core. This is the beauty of the discovered self. The whole self. The balanced individual.

On the one hand, we’ve taken all the information that we’ve processed in our lives from a pattern recognition view and have it in our repertoire. Our brain and this constructed self allows us to navigate this social construct based on what we understand as inputs and outputs. On the other hand, now we get to “drive” this processor. How do we want to use the pattern association in this situation? How do we want to transverse this current condition?

We do so by relying on our hearts. The heart has intuitively guided us from the beginning, and now that we have amassed an enormous amount of information, the heart can access the entire terrain and lead us to the “right” decision. What is that right decision? The decision that most aligns with our deepest calling.