Heart Health and Positive Connection

ByJeane Hendrix

Heart Disease & Positive Connection

As you are probably aware, heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. What you may not have heard is that a lack of positive connection has the same detrimental health effects as smoking and excessive alcohol use! What if there were something you could do in just a few minutes per day that would help you dramatically improve both your cardiovascular health AND your ability to generate positive connections with others?

There are exciting research studies that show how meditation—specifically loving-kindness meditation—has a direct and measurable impact on our brains and our hearts. (I’ve included this link if you are interested in some of the research.)

What Healthy Hearts Can Do

In a nutshell, physicians measure our cardiac vagal tone (heart rate variability) to predict our cardiovascular health and our ability to regulate heart rhythms, glucose, and inflammation. Cardiac vagal tone also predicts the mind’s ability to regulate attention, emotions, and social skills. An increase in cardiac vagal tone increases our ability to share positive emotions with others in our daily life and this increased shared positivity predicts improvements in our cardiac vagal tone—even years later! According to Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, “Positive emotions, positive social connections, and physical health influence one another in a self-sustaining upward-spiral dynamic.” This upward spiral is a win-win for our relationships and our health!

Nourishment for Your Heart

Here is the key: when people make the effort to self-generate “other-focused” positive emotions, it changes their experiences and interactions with people and it changes the rhythms of their heart, making their beat-to-beat rhythms more effective! This is so much more than a fleeting good feeling; it’s energizing, enlivening, and life-giving! Loving-kindness meditation is literally nourishment for your heart!

How to Practice Loving-kindness Meditation:

Sit where you can be comfortable but alert. Sitting up straight with your sternum forward makes it easier for your rib cage to expand. Lower your gaze or close your eyes. Without straining or forcing, take several deep, slow breaths. Follow your breath into your heart. Notice how each breath brings new energy to your heart and allows it to send oxygen to your body. If it helps you to focus your thoughts, place your hand over your heart.

In this meditation, you will be repeating phrases silently. These phrases are springboards or intentions. As you say them, be open to feeling what you are saying, be open to kindness, but don’t strong-arm your emotions. If bad feelings come up or you feel disingenuous, revert back to saying the phrases to yourself or someone you love. This habit helps you stretch your feelings to go beyond yourself and those you already love. This is a place of non-judgment and safety. If your thoughts wonder, (which they will for all of us) gently bring them back to the phrases.

Let’s Start:

Picture yourself and think of the good feelings you have about yourself. Relax deeply into these feelings of love and appreciation. Slowly repeat these phrases silently:

May I feel safe and protected.
May I feel happy and peaceful.
May I be healthy and strong.
May I live my life with ease.

Now, picture someone who loves you; imagine that person sending you wishes of love. Feel their kindness, warmth, and compassion; bask in it for a few moments. As you picture this person, send them your love and warm wishes by repeating these phrases silently:

May you feel safe and protected.
May you feel happy and peaceful.
May you be healthy and strong.
May you live your life with ease.

Next, picture those you will interact with today: your clients, your students, your co-workers. Repeat the phrases while you picture each of them and send them your warmth and compassion:

May you feel safe and protected.
May you feel happy and peaceful.
May you be healthy and strong.
May you live your life with ease.

Become Open To Positive Connections

You can even adapt this meditation to generate positive feelings for people you have had negative interactions with in the past. You can send love to people all over the world—people you will never see. This practice isn’t tied to a naive belief that just sending love and warm wishes will make the world a utopia. The point is that by doing this meditation, you will change; you will soften and become more open to positive connections.

As the poet Rumi wisely said, “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

As I meditated today, I thought of each of you who are reading this….

May you feel safe and protected.
May you feel happy and peaceful.
May you be healthy and strong.
May you live your life with ease.

~Jeane

Kok, B. E., Coffey, K. A., Cohn, M. A., Catalino, L. I., Vacharkulksemsuk, T., Algoe, S. B., Brantley, M., & Fredrickson, B. L. (2013). How positive emotions build physical health: perceived positive social connections account for the upward spiral between positive emotions and vagal tone. Psychological science, 24(7), 1123–1132. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612470827

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