Stop.
Wait a minute.
Fill Your cup ‘an put some liquor in it.
Now turn down “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson and ditch You vodka over ice for a fresh glass of Spring Water.
But still stop and take a moment to observe Yourself.
Take Your finger and point to where You are in Your Body right now.
if You're reading this, 9 out of 10 times Your finger will land on Your Forehead, Temples or Eyes. And if You watch Yourself throughout the rest of the day You’ll most likely find Your finger landing in the same place, indicating that You're living from within Your head.
This isn’t unheard of.
But where else should You be?
Still in Your Head but empty?
Certainly, but sometimes that level of practice takes a lot more time, effort and consistency than most are willing to put in.
Yet switching the Office from where You make Your operational decisions from can wildly improve the Health of Your Fascia. This carries over to the Integrity of Your Body, the state of Your Metabolism, the degree of Your Athletic Range, the Capacity to perform high-end Cognition and Your ability to handle stress and experience Joy.
So if You want to learn how to functionalize Your Fascia by switching Your Operational Office, and do it in 1 minute or less,
then read on.
In this article we’re going to break down How the Heart feels Emotions first, What the heck Heart Coherence is and how it can improve Fascial Function and then I’m going to give You one of the simplest, most powerful techniques You can use anywhere, at any time, to maintain balance in Your Fascial System.
In the second half of this article We will disassemble the moving parts of the Heart-Brain to show how it impacts Fascial Health.
But first let's take a look at how the Heart steers Brain Function.
WHAT IS THE HEART-BRAIN?
You heard right.
Heart-Brain. As in one thing.
Depending on how You look at it, the Heart and Brain could really be one organ, (take a look at this quick video courtesy of Gil Hedley to have Your mind blown.)
Though we are not going to dive too deep into the anatomy of the Heart-Brain Axis, the relationship between the 2 seemingly separate organs are is well-rooted and deeply connected. And unlike the common belief in Brain-led Theory it's actually the Heart that leads.
HOW THE HEART FEELS EMOTIONS FIRST
Like the Gut, the Heart has it’s own intrinsic & independent nervous system that is composed of over 40,000 neurons. These neurons function as a single co-ordinated unit, an elaborate and intricate circuit board that is able to sense, feel, learn, remember and retain emotional information that it then sends to the brain.
Instead of acting as simple relay stations, passively transmitting messages from the Heart to other points in the body. The Heart’s internal Circuit Board actually communicates with neighboring neurons to co-ordinate and adjust Heart Function. Specifically the Heart uses independent feedback loops that are capable of long and short term memory and exhibiting plasticity (ability to rewire, adapt and change; adjusting to new inputs).
So without all the scientific biobabble?
Your Heart is its own independent living System.
It has its own Methods for Rewiring, Communicating with Itself, Storing Memory, and a unique ability to direct change within Your Body.
And it does it without anybody’s outside help.
It’s essentially a Super-Organ.
Kind of like Your Brain.
The only difference is Your Brain does all this with thoughts.
With visions and words You see in Your Head like You would on a screen, this is Your Brains Language.
Your Heart does the same thing but with emotion and feelings. These are physical sensations and mind states You feel within Your entire Body, (including Your Head).
REMINDER:
Feeling = Physical sensations other than those experienced by touch.
Mind = The present vibrational state of every cell in the body, not just the cells in Your Brain.
So why is this important?
Well it means the Heart is actually the organ that feels Emotions first, and then sends it to the brain.
Not the other way around.
THE HEART FEELS EMOTIONS FIRST
Both Your Heart and Brain receive and rally a response to a future event 3-5 seconds before it happens.
The interesting part is that on average Your Heart perceives the information 1.5 secs before Your Brain. Your Heart then compiles all this information together, tucks it into a neat little parcel box complete with a beautifully bundled bow, and sends it to the Brain, where the information regarding the up and coming situation is used to help the Brain make a better-informed, intuitive decision.
All the Information the Brain receives before the event happens is called “Pre-stimulus Information”.
So in essence Your Heart is like a reconnaissance Scout, picking up information before anyone knows what's going on and sending it back to Base Camp so they can make a more educated and enlightened decision.
But here’s the cool part.
Your Heart is like a veteran Scout who’s kept a Database and an Extensive Logbook. Being out in the field for so long, the Scout has noticed patterns, trends and similar situations and has seen the outcomes of past decisions over and over again. It also sees new information with much more clarity and specificity than anyone else at Base Camp has or ever will. Because of this experience, Base camp wants to know the Scout’s opinion on what decisions are best. So before sending in the final report, the Scout makes its own changes, adding their perspective into the mix, making suggestions on how the situation should be handled.
Your Heart does this to a “T”.
Your Heart is a High-Functioning Sensory Organ. Detecting shifts in the Autonomic Nervous System and changes in hormonal rhythms while simultaneously responding in kind with its own hormones to make modifications to the body as a whole. Alongside the host of neurotransmitters and its extensive neural communication network, Your Heart not only sends more messages to the Brain than the Brain sends to it, but it can also modify the signals before it sends them.
These messages Your Heart sends to Your Brain are known as AFFERENT signals.
As in Ascending.
Or going Up.
To the Brain.
The messages arrive in the cardiorespiratory center, right in Your Brain Stem, (the medulla to be specific). Upon arrival it cascades up and out, influencing higher level perceptual, emotional and cognitive processing, shifting perception and trickling into the decision-making process where it can create radical shifts in behavior.
How can You leverage this?
Heart Coherence.
WHAT IS HEART COHERENCE?
The Institute of Heart Math (IHM) define Heart Coherence as:
“A harmonious physical and psychological functioning [state] that promotes emotional stability and optimal cognitive performance.”
This is known as psycho-physiological coherence, or simply put “heart coherence”.
In essence it’s Your Brain and Heart working in synchrony to enhance Your ability to perceive, learn, focus, feel and perform.
Think of it this way.
The rhythm of Your Heart Beat acts like Morse Code for Your Brain. Each pulse of “Morse Code” transmits a complex string of information that the Heart has self-organized and processed for the Brain to quickly and efficiently read. Depending on the way the code is structured determines whether or not we turn “ON” or “OFF” centers in the brain associated with Attention , Focus, Memory, Cortical Processes and Higher-order Mental functions associated with behavior and performance.
So what form of Heart Rhythm or “code” turns these systems “ON”?
It’s in the form of a Sine Wave, and this is what Heart Coherence looks like
COHERENT HEART RHYTHMS
Your Brain is a Giant Pattern Recognition and Storage System. And Your Heart is the most powerful generator of rhythmic information patterns in the Body. So the Brain is always listening to what Your Heart has to say, and as far as Your Brain is concerned what Your Heart has to say has a lot of value.
All of the information Your Heart has to pass on to Your Brain is encoded in Your Heart’s Rhythm. Your Heart’s Rhythm is the time between every Heartbeat. Under optimal conditions the time between every beat should fluctuate a little bit. If You take a snapshot over a window of time a pattern should emerge in the form of a Sine Wave.
When it does Your Heart’s Rhythm is considered coherent.
It is also how HRV works.
Optimal HRV will produce a Sine-like Wave. Really good HRV will have that Sine Wave with more amplitude. A lower grade, but still ideal HRV will have the same Sine Wave represented in shorter amplitude.
Poor HRV will not produce a sine wave. This is because the variation between Heart Rhythms is too erratic. While there is still some variability from beat to beat, it is less. Creating a snapshot over a longer period of time we see less variability clustered into different ranges of Heart Rate.
This is also what incoherent Heart Rhythms look like.
The disordered nature of incoherent heart rhythms creates a lot of “inner noise“. Like static, incoherent heart Rhythms disrupts the flow of information throughout the nervous system and actively prevents distant neural networks within separate regions of the brain from synchronizing their activity.
As a result there’s an interference between critical cognitive processes like Abstract Reasoning Memory Recall, Problem-Solving, Creativity and Focussed Attention.
So if You find Yourself overwhelmed when wrestling theoretical physics or trying to find the bridge between the Aristitle’s Theory of Metaphysics from the West and Lao Tzu’s Theory of Taoism from the East You may want to look into what Your Heart is doing rather than delving deeper into the realms of Thought.
In contrast, Coherent Heart Rhythms pull everything together. Coherent Heart Rhythms are like the background music that guide all the puzzle pieces of the Brain into the right position so they click together like Lock & Key.
Under coherent heart rhythms subcortical structures involved in processing emotional information organize themselves in a way that facilitates higher level cortical processes like reflecting, organizing, planning, prioritizing, adapting, task initiation and other executive functions that play into making good decisions.
This is called the Heart Rhythms Coherence Hypothesis.
Essentially the Subcortical structures are like a moving maze and the heart's rhythm is what moves the individual pieces (structures in the subcortex). When it's incoherent the pieces move without cooperating or co-ordinating with one another. Working independently they all respond differently to the way the heart beats, creating a “structural traffic jam” which impedes information flow from the Body and forces decisions to be made exclusively on a mammalian or reptilian level within the Brain (Triune Brain Theory)
With coherent rhythms the subcortical structures act like interdependent musicians in an orchestra. Each one listening to the same beat played out by the composer (Your Heart’s Rhythm). The result is a beautiful symphony whose frequency vibrationally activates “the moving maze” to organize and open a pathway to the higher-ordered thinking processes of the Neocortex.
When this happens our physiological, emotional and cognitive systems synchronize and we re-establish harmonious functioning body-wide. In the end we reap the benefits of reduced stress & anxiety, enhanced hormonal & immune function, increased self-regulation, improved short & long-term memory, sharper reaction times, sustained focus and greater ability to process more information at a quicker rate.
If we go back to our Scout analogy the degree of coherence within Heart Rhythms determines whether the Scouts Reconnaisance Info makes it back to the Commander Generals Tent at Base Camp or whether it gets lost in the barracks(platoon) of (the) Front-line Soldiers.
Coherence means that the message goes straight to the General, Incoherence means it gets lost on the card table between laughs and shared drinks.
SHARED SPACE: THE HEART - THE BRAIN - THE FASCIA
Out of the subcortical structures there are 2 primary structures that play a particularly strong role in Heart Coherence and whether or not the moving maze begins to line up or turn into a jumbled mess.
These are the Amygdala and the Thalamus and for the sake of time I’m going to break these down quickly.
Punctuated by Point-form and pin-pointed by pungent prescriptions.
Here we go:
Amygdala:
- Defaults to putting more weight on negative experiences.
- A pattern-matching system that encodes emotional memories.
- Matches present-moment experiences with past memories that have any form of similarity.
- “Matches” initiate the same emotional response You had before, known as “Amygdala Hijack”.
- Amygdala Hijack prevents information from passing to the Cortex.
- Heart Coherence encodes new programming in the Amygdala, (like a factory reset.)
Thalamus:
- Acts as the bridge between the Frontal Lobes and the rest of the Brain.
- Opens the alley for Cross-Hemisphere Harmony / Syncing.
- Synchronizes neural activity of different cortical structures in the Brain.
So with that out of the way let's take a quick dip into how the Heart mechanistically facilitates Your Brain working in full concert. Then we’ll dive into how Your Brain integrates in its entirety and supports Fascial function.
Alongside Your Hippocampus your Amygdala is responsible for filtering and filing patterns produced by Your Body. (read more about this here).Your Body’s most consistent pattern producer is Your Heart and given it has a direct line to Your Amygdala via an ascending neural pathway Your Amygdala quickly adjusts to become familiar to the most predominant pattern. If Your Heart’s rhythm is frequently incoherent (due to stress) Your Amygdala begins to become familiar with incoherence.
This is how we maladapt to stress. (And all the shutdown cortical processes that accompany it.)
Because the amygdala familiarizes itself with Your Heart’s incoherent rhythms this becomes the new normal. Even if this new normal is associated with higher irritability, an inability to focus and chronic low levels of anxiety (aka feeling miserable), it still feels comfortable.
We become like a fish in dirty water. It feels “at home” because our only contrast is being stuck on the shore, (not very home-like for a fish). But even though its become familiar with dirty water the fish also has no understanding or perception of what clean water feels like.
Likewise, under the influence of incoherent Heart rhythms the thalamus gets inundated with the disordered tempo of the heart. The temperamental nature of incoherent heart rhythms scrambles the circuitry of the thalamus and desynchronizes cortical activity globally across the Brain.
While the research has not yet explicitly found evidence that the Insula or Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) are directly innervated by the Heart there are 2 other Brain structures worth mentioning.
The Insula’s job is to integrate all of the Interoceptive information, (Heart Rhythms included), delivered by the Fascia and integrate it before it is made consciously available. Your ACC ensures the appropriate behaviour is carried out.
Both of these areas are huge players in the Fascial-Brain relationship which You can read about here.
But the important thing to note is that Heart Rhythm input to the Insula is cross-referenced with Heart Rhythm Input to the Amygdala via Amygdala-Insula Crosstalk. (They are neighbors after all, they could watch what each other is doing from their kitchen windows.)
After all is complete the Insula then makes it conscious and You have the choice on how deeply You want to listen in and how invested You want to be in attenuating behavioral expression that Your Fascia has already begun to carry out. Studies in mice have even shown that the Amygdala listens to the new evidence the Insula brings in to rewire what stimuli it considers threatening or supportive.
What matters is that Heart Rhythms have a direct line to Fascial Function via the Insula-Amygdala relationship.
So simply put:
Heart Rhythms → influence Fascial Function.
When the Heart is beating to the drum of incoherence this is the tune of stress. And stress drives dysfunction in Your Fascia by the Immune System.
Enter Inflammation.
Step up to the starting line.
If You thought this was a slick slope before, buckle up, we just transitioned from Bobsled to Luge.
FASCIAL THICKENING AND INCOHERENCE
Do You have Your Helmet and Spandex onesie on?
Good.
I’m about to show You a picture.
And it's a super fun one.
Said nobody ever outside the Official Fascial Conference in Boston.
Yes. Everyone here likes to nerd out about Fascia and labcoats & clipboards make us get all hot & bothered. These type of people is who this diagram is built for. Regardless, it's very useful and we’re going to make a simpler version before the end of this article.
(Alternatively just scroll down.)
Here it is.
Alright.
Let's take a couple deep breaths after that aneurysm and break this diagram down.
Ah.
Perfect.
The mechanism above has everything to fo with the interaction between Environment, Bosy and mind and how they effect Health and Disease, or Psychoneuroendocrineimmunology for short.
I bet Mary Poppins would have a tough time with that one.
Here’s how it works.
Incoherent Heart Rhythms are both drivers and indicators of a Stress response.
Under stress our HPA Axis gets turned on. This stimulates 2 things, (1) Adrenaline, and later Cortisol release and (2) The Fight or Flight Response.
In both cases Immune Populations within the Fascia get activated, these populations are categorized as Macrophages, Mast Cells and Neutrophils.
Note: If You’ve read My stuff before You probably already know that Your Fascia is 90% Ground Substance and the other 10% is Cells. Out of all the Cells 15% of them are Immune Cells, the rest are Fibroblasts, translation → 1.5% of Fascia is Immune Cells.
But it’s the Hierarchy that counts.
The Immune Cells steer Fibroblasts and Fibroblasts design Ground Substance.
So in other words the fate of Your Fascia is being steered by less than 2% of the cells within it.
These 2-percenters are Your Immune Cells.
When activated by the HPA Axis each population does their thing:
Macrophages
Flip to M1 Phenotype (Pro-Inflammatory Mode). These guys secrete a bunch of signaling molecules. It’s basically Code Red system-wide. It's like yelling “Mayday!”, “Radio!” and “Call for Backup!” except they use words like “NF-kB!”, “TGFbeta!” and “Interleukin 6!”, which clearly sounds specific, detailed and way more badass.
M1 Macrophages also stimulate Collagen Production and cause some key changes in Fibroblast activity in the Fascia.
Mast Cells
Release mini-scissors called Metalloproteinases (MMP’s). These are enzymes that move through the Ground Substance of the Fascia and ECM snipping Collagen Fibers and degrading Glycoproteins within the Ground Substance. In essence they actually make the fascia more permeable and can potentially make it more fragile.
The trick is when they stick around too long. Then they cevome a signaling molecule for Fibroblast differentiation, (it's a big word, it will be explained.)
Neutrophils
Spill Neutrophil Extracellular Traps (NET’s). NET’s are exactly what they sound like. They net molecules of Tissue Damage called DAMP’s and wrap them up like a blanket to prevent further damage. The problem is NET’s are not only signalling molecules for Fibroblasts through molecules like TGFb, Il6 and TLR9, but in excess they can also be pro-inflammatory pulling in more M1’s.
While NET’s, M1’s and MMP’s might be all special in their own way but they all converge on one single point.
The Fibroblasts.
They are essentially what anger is for Bruce Banner.
But instead or turning into the Hulk smashing everything in site,
Fibroblasts differentiate into Myofibroblasts that squeeze fascial fibers together and pull everything tight.
Poetry 101.
FIBROBLAST DIFFERENTIATION
Under the influence of these signalling molecules Fibroblasts undergo a very important shift. It’s called Fibroblast Differentiation.
Normally Fibroblasts live within the Fascia casually moving around degrading collagen and secreting new fibers. They glide along like architectural artists and Interior Design enthusiasts, making an adjustment here, and a tweak there to make sure everything is structurally sound and flows as smoothly as possible under the given conditions.
But when Immune Cells start secreting NET’s & MMP’s and start shifting to the Pro-Inflammatory Phenotype Fibroblasts change roles, they turn into Myofibroblasts.
When this happens they exchange their everyday work attire for a Superhero Cape and Suit and jump into action to save the day.
The job of Myofibroblasts is to produce Contractures. Contractures are like muscle Contractions except they are slower, taking up to 30 mins to reach maximal intensity and instead of being activated by nerve cells and electrical signals they are turned on via chemical messengers and hormones.
Contractures are great when there’s a wound to stitch up or the ECM needs to be quickly repaired from acute damage. Myofibroblasts essentially pull all the pieces together and stitch it all up. When they’re finished they undergo apoptosis, (cell-death), and everything returns back to normal.
But when the HPA Axis is always on due to incoherent Heart Rhythms the inflammatory mediators released by immune cells never stop. This creates a pathological path. Instead of undergoing apoptosis Myofibroblasts continue to survive and pumping collagen production in the ECM continuing to produce contractures. This drives a whole host of problems like fibrosis, adhesions and fascial stiffening.
Picture it like this.
If You have 1 sheet of paper (Your Fascial Fabric / ECM), You can easily flex and bend it within Your hands. It rolls up and unwinds with ease.
But as You stack more papers on top (more collagen) and stack them tightly together (contractures), they lose their flex, stiffening and becoming more rigid.
This is what happens to Your Fascia.
It is also what an adhesion or fibrotic tissue acts like.
This then enters a vicious loop where stiffer fascia drives stronger contractures, driving stiffer fascia and so on.
So how do You stop the cycle?
Heart Coherence.
HEART COHERENCE TECHNIQUES FOR FASCIAL FUNCTION
So lets Recap:
We’re going to enter this loop in the beginning.
The Institute of HeartMath calls this Technique the Quick Coherence Technique.
Here’s how it works:
1. Focus on Your Heart (the actual spot in Your Body)
2. Breath into it. (Imagine it filling and emptying with every breath).
3. Feel the area around Your Heart pulsing to the rhythm of Your Breath.
4. Think of something positive (Imagine receiving a hug, eating delicious food, Your kids laughing).
5. Feel it.
Done.
The whole process should take anywhere between 30 secs-1 min after Your first few times.
Here’s a couple indicators and key mentions
- Between Steps 1-2 You may notice Your eyes shifting to look to where Your heart rests or even better, You will feel that that is where Your mind actually is.
- At step 2 don’t mentally multi-task.
- You should feel Your body ease up but also energize. It’s not the same as collapsing into relaxation.
- It may take time, give it 1 minute, if You get nothing try again, 1x / hour, neural networks in the Brain and Fascia are in the process of building interoceptive pathways every time You practice.
If You want to kick it up a notch, HeartMath offers emWave and Inner Balance technology so You can watch Your level of Heart Coherence in real time. It will also cue You when to breath in and out in order to synchronize Your Breath with Your Heart Rhythms and steer Yourself to a greater level of Heart Coherence. Personally I like to use these Pre-Challenge or Post-Trauma, this usually offsets My need to use it during present-time stressors, though I still need to pull it out from time to time.
Over time Heart Coherence has a Carryover Effect. Like building resiliency to cold, Your Body will very quickly be able to drop into Heart Coherence where it can eventually become Your normal mode of operation or default.
Just like the Amygdala can be wired to recgnize incoherent Heart Rhythms as familiar and thus maladapt to stress, it can also be rewired for coherence and release the incoherent patterns that are no longer effective. Through the practice of Quick Coherence Techniques You can shift subjective inner states and reduce inner noise as You synchronize Your Physiology with Your Mind and Your Environment.
In turn Your Fascia remains in Homeostasis. A platform that perpetuates power and eliminates pain.
