Rekindle your spirit

A recipe from the Institute of HeartMath
to rekindle your
spirit for the holidays:

Into your heart, pour generous quantities of love and
care. Stir gently and sincerely. If the mixture is lumpy,
add compassion and forgiveness and continue stirring ’til
the lumps are dissolved. You may find bubbles of hope
rising to the surface. Taste-testing at this point is
encouraged. Although you will find the mixture already
flavorful, you can enhance it by adding appreciation.
Appreciation for the qualities of your heart, for friends
and family, or for this special time of year are all excellent
flavor choices. Garnish with a sprig of joy and serve in
large spoonfuls to everyone you meet this holiday season.

"The holidays are a good time to renew your heart connection with people. Make that your focus and priority. Spend more time enjoying people and their holiday spirit and it can help rekindle your holiday spirit. A great way you can enjoy more of the holiday spirit is by keeping your focus on genuinely appreciating and caring for others. Ask yourself each morning, "Who can I show a little more appreciation to, or who can I express more genuine care for today?" It can be as simple as opening the door for someone or telling people that you appreciate them. Genuine gestures of care and appreciation are often remembered long after the holiday glitter is gone. You’ll find this is a fun gift for others and a big gift to yourself."

– Excerpts from Tips To Prevent Holiday Stress And Avoid Faking The Holiday Spirit article,
Huffington Post Dec. 2009 by Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman, Ph.D.

Kindness...

c. 2009 HeartMath

Don't Wait

Quantum Intech, Inc. Copyright © 2009, HeartMath LLC All rights reserved.

Negative Response Pattern Defined

The HeartMath Definition:

Negative Response Pattern: The tendency to automatically respond negatively to a given situation.

Want to truly take control of your life? Then you really should take a few moments to understand this term because it has a lot to do with how you think, feel and respond to all sorts of situations, information and more importantly, the stressors in your life.

You already know … a major function of your brain is to serve as a memory bank – and a huge one at that. Among the array of memories stored in this vast repository are all of the responses to the various situations and challenges you encounter throughout your day, whether it is your response to the changing weather, food you eat, a near miss on the freeway or an unpleasant encounter with someone you’d rather avoid.

How you react to those events and everything else in your life is stored in your brain. How did it all get there? Simple enough: You put it there by your actions. Every time something pleasant happens in your life, something interesting, scary, even the fragrance of a flower, how you respond or react to it is studiously inventoried by your brain, all neatly stored for future reference. Over time, the way we perceive and react to the various events we encountered sets up automatic response patterns.

So, if your tendency has been to routinely respond angrily to stressful situations, the brain will make anger an automatic response in other similar situations, thus creating a negative response pattern.

The brain basically operates as a pattern-matching system that scans for a familiar response. When a stressful situation occurs, the brain scans its memory banks looking for previous stressful experiences and how we responded, until it perceives a match. If our past response pattern was to perceive the situation as negative, then it triggers the same emotional reactions you had the previous time – like anxiety, hurt, resignation, or depression.

What can we do about negative response patterns? "The good news is," Transforming Depression authors Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman write, "that all these brain circuits are flexible and can be reshaped with new patterns throughout life. It’s never too late to learn or to change."

You may choose to step back when stressful events occur and react compassionately, lovingly or any other way, and your brain will remember this, too. Make any of these your routine reaction and you’ll create a positive response pattern that eventually can replace the negative patterns.

Institute of HeartMath Newsletter, May/June 2008 Vol. 7/No.1

Connecting a Million Hearts

Earth Day ~ April 22, 2008

HeartMath is campaigning to connect a Million Hearts on April 22 by asking everyone to stop for 2 minutes and focus on the feeling of gratitude and appreciation for our beautiful planet. Watch their awe inspiring video here.

On this same webpage you can also download their free 20 page e-book: Applied Appreciation

According to the American Institute of Stress, up to 90% of all health problems are related to stress. Additionally, a large body of research confirms that our thoughts and emotions have a dynamic effect on our health and vitality.

Emotions like frustration, insecurity and depressing feelings are stressful and inhibit optimal health. Positive emotions like appreciation, care, and love not only feel good, they promote health, performance and well being.

HeartMath's research has shown when you learn how to intentionally shift to a positive emotion, heart rhythms immediately change. A shift in heart rhythms may not seem important but in fact it creates a favorable cascade of neural, hormonal and biochemical events that benefit the entire body. The stress-reducing effects are both immediate and long lasting.

Loving Heart... Dickens

Copyright © 2008, HeartMath LLC

He that does good to another does good also to himself.

Pancake Rocks, Punakaiki, South Island, New Zealand.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca, or Seneca the Younger) (c. 4 BC – AD 65) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. [Wikipedia]

HeartQuotes Copyright © 2007, HeartMath LLC All rights reserved.

Learn to Manage your Emotions, Doc Childre, HeartMath

Copyright © 2007, HeartMath LLC All rights reserved

Heart Quote, Pema Chodron

http://images.heartmath.com/heartquotes/hq537.html

Speaking from your heart...

"People have important things to communicate. Speaking from your heart allows the emotionally difficult, the ordinary, and the wonderful things in our lives to be communicated and received."

David McArthur and Bruce McArthur,
The Intelligent Heart




Burney Falls, CA
Photo by Janis Davies, 2007. All Rights Reserved
Institute of HeartMath. HeartQuotes is a trademark of Quantum Intech, Inc. Copyright © 2007

Connections, Herman Melville

HeartQuotes is a trademark of Quantum Intech, Inc. Copyright © 2007, HeartMath LLC All rights reserved.

Opportunity, J.W. Gardner

HeartMath is a registered trademark of the Institute of HeartMath.
HeartQuotes is a trademark of Quantum Intech, Inc.
Copyright © 2007, HeartMath LLC All rights reserved.

Take everything you like seriously...

The life I touch..

HeartMath is a registered trademark of the Institute of HeartMath.
HeartQuotes is a trademark of Quantum Intech, Inc.
Copyright © 2007, HeartMath LLC All rights reserved.

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be...

HeartMath is a registered trademark of the Institute of HeartMath.
HeartQuotes is a trademark of Quantum Intech, Inc.
Copyright © 2007, HeartMath LLC All rights reserved.

Character...

HeartMath is a registered trademark of the Institute of HeartMath.
HeartQuotes is a trademark of Quantum Intech, Inc. Copyright © 2007, HeartMath LLC All rights reserved.

Small Daily Changes add up to making a big difference

HeartMath is a registered trademark of the Institute of HeartMath. HeartQuotes is a trademark of Quantum Intech, Inc.
Copyright © 2007, HeartMath LLC All rights reserved.

Reduce Stress the HeartMath way: fast instant relief

We all know we need to reduce stress. We just don't have the time to do what most traditional approaches to stress reduction tell us: RELAX. We need quick stress relief, something we can do 24/7 while we multitask and answer all those emails. We need something we can do that doesn't require a trip to the spa, the beach or a quiet room.

HeartMath's Quick Coherence® Technique is stress reduction for the 21st century: Fast, instant and on demand.

• Heart focus. Focus your attention to the area around your heart.
• Heart breathing. Imagine your breath flowing into and out of your heart.
• Heart feeling. Recall a positive or fun time in your life and attempt to re experience it.

Now, doesn't that feel better?

Inner Quality Tip from HeartMath. Copyright 2007 HeartMath LLC. All rights reserved. HeartMath LLC. 14700 West Park Avenue Boulder Creek, CA 95006

Mother Teresa on Peace

Anger Limits Love - HeartMath quote