2568: Heart Coherence with Howard Martin

LifeBlood: We talked about heart coherence, how our hearts process information and the heart/brain connection, the role heart rate plays in overall health, the performance upsides of a stronger understanding of this connection, and how to get started, with Howard Martin, Executive Vice President of HeartMath, speaker, and author. Listen to learn how you can start alleviating stress and anxiety in your everyday life! You can learn more about Howard at HeartMath.com https://www.heartmath.com/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/HeartMath2, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/HeartMath/, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/heartmath/, and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/howardmartin/. George’s newest book is available! Get your copy of The Meaningful Few here: https://amzn.to/4qA26X9 Feeling busy but unfulfilled? The Meaningful Few helps you identify what truly matters, eliminate distractions, and live with intention and clarity. Learn more here: https://www.mymeaningfulfew.com/ Thanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here: ​​https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcast You can learn more about us at LifeBlood. Live http://lifeblood.live/, Twitter https://twitter.com/ourlifeblood, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/lifebloodlive, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lifeblood.live/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNQ9Gc4mMwCHZKUHjbt0-qA and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lifebloodlive or you’d like to be a guest on the show, contact us at contact@LifeBlood. Live. Stay up to date by getting our monthly updates https://george-grombacher.aweb.page. Want to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifeblood Copyright LifeBlood 2026.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:44Speaker 01

  Howard Martin has spent 30 years with HeartMath. They're an organization working to awaken the heart of humanity. He is an author, he is a speaker, he is a spokesperson. Welcome to the show, Howard.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Hey, George, thank you very much for having me on your program. This is gonna be fun.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, excited to have you on. Tell us a little bit about your personal life, more about your work, and why you do what you do.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  Well, you know, as a young man, I had a couple of insights. One is I started to see and believe that the purpose of life was about constant growth and evolution. That's everything you seem to be actually doing. But in addition to that, I also believed that whatever you gained in life, whatever you got from that evolutionary process, you needed to find a way to share it. So to manifest that and to take that into something that I could actually do, I took a heart-centric approach. My life's work has been about an exploration of heart, from the physical to the emotional to the spiritual, unfolding more of this wonderful aspect that we have as human beings that's been generically called heart. I've been fortunate. You know, I've been with HeartMath now as an executive for over, you know, 30 years,

• 1:52Speaker 02

  35 years, and author, speaker, things you mentioned already. And I think part of that is based upon, you know, obviously coming at it from the heart, but also another belief that I have. And that belief is that life works best when you're trying to give more to it than you're trying to actually take from it. And so today, when I look at the world and I see the fulfillment I have, I recognize most people don't have that. It's a pretty stressful place right now for most people. And they're basically just trying to get from one day to the next. I know that it doesn't really have to be that way because of what's happened to me. And I guess what I want today more than anything is to share what I can to help people understand new

• 2:35Speaker 02

  ways that they can approach life that are going to lead to more fulfillment and not just to go through the stress grind day after day.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is, uh, it feels like we're living on the razor's edge these days, for sure.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  Stress and anxiety and obligations and too many inputs and we're not physically healthy, we're not mentally healthy, we're not spiritually healthy, psychologically healthy.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  I don't know if there's a question in there somewhere, Howard, but, uh...

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Well, let me answer it anyway. You know, I think we are going through an extraordinary time. More change is happening in less time than ever before in the history of humankind. This is actually a good thing. You know, the world is changing. We are evolving. It's going to emerge eventually into a new, different, and much... Not easy. Change is never easy. With this much change, this much input coming at us, it creates, you know, a host of opportunities for stress. We're always going to have some. There's always the personal stresses. There's worries over things like money, or health, or our relationships, or dissatisfaction with our jobs, and those things like that that I'm sure you would understand. But in addition to that, you know, the global landscape,

• 3:48Speaker 02

  so to speak, you know, the playing field in which we're trying to live now is going through a tremendous amount of change and turmoil, chaos and confusion, and the external events that are taking place in the world are often so disconcerting. What seems to happen to people over time is it creates, you know, nervous system overload. You know, the nervous system just can't take on so much. They began to shut down. It creates all these stressful responses in the body, the release of hormones. We don't want too many of like cortisol and adrenaline. And eventually you reach a point of chronic stress. You don't even realize it. You know, you wake up in the morning stressed. You do the best you can during the day. You go to bed stressed and it's day after day like

• 4:29Speaker 02

  that. And that's not the right existence for us. It's not how it should be or how it needs to be. And so, you know, stress is not my favorite subject to talk about, but I think it's important right now because so many people are dealing with a challenge of this chronic stress condition.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  And how is your work combating this?

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Well, the anecdote for that is synchronization between the heart and the brain. What a lot of people don't know is that the heart does more than pump blood. It's actually an important information processing center in our body. And it's sending information, very important information to the brain and throughout the rest of the body. When you learn to harness this communication, when you learn to make it more coherent, the heart begins to send signals to the brain that open up hyperperceptual centers in our brain. They give us the ability to see things differently, to perceive differently. It leads into new, more hopeful, open-ended perspectives that accumulate the resilience that we have to have today to meet the challenges

• 5:28Speaker 02

  of this extraordinary change. So the anecdote to this stress deal that we're all in at times is really heart-brain-body synchronization. We have tools, we have techniques, we have amazing assistive technology for helping with this, a lot of ways that we do it. But once we get the heart and brain working together and talking coherently, we can deal with the stress a lot better.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  I'm mildly shocked that I don't know what kind of information that our hearts are processing.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, it is something interesting. You know, basically, we have a nervous system in the heart. And it's actually studied through a medical field called neurocardiology. Next to the brain is the most sophisticated part of the nervous system that we actually have. And it's sending information through a nerve pathway that starts in our heart, goes up into the brain, enters the lower centers of the brain, you know, the instinctual brain, but then it goes all the way up into the mid-level brain. It's called the limbic system. It's where a lot of our emotional processing takes place. But it travels even further and goes all the way into what's called the neocortex, higher perceptual center of the brain, where our critical thinking occurs, is getting signals from the heart. And these signals, it turns out, are important.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  Brain function is critically dependent upon this information. That's one way. We also know the heart's communicating through changes in how it beats, the rhythmic beating patterns, called the blood pressure wave. In 1983, the heart was reclassified as part of our hormonal system. This is another one of those things like, who knew? You know, this has actually happened. They found it was releasing hormones, very important ones that are regenerative, like DHEA, which is the generically called the anti-aging hormone, and oxytocin, which is a very regenerative hormone, generically called the love hormone. So the heart was doing all this communicating. And what we found is you could measure it. You measure it by looking at changes occurring in our heart rhythms.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  And there's a name for that, a medical and scientific name. It's called heart rate variability analysis. Heart's constantly changing speeds, it's supposed to, to pump blood in these nuanced ways that it needs to do that. But what we found was, is that one of the major contributors to how the heart was beating was actually the emotions that we were feeling. When we're feeling stressful emotions, like the frustration, the anger, the impatience, the dissatisfaction, this kind of feelings, the heart rhythms become very jagged, very regular. And that's sending signals to the brain that are beginning to shut down those higher perceptual centers. So that's when we just don't see clearly.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  It's when we can't really see into these problems that we face with any kind of discrimination. Certainly, we lose hopeful perspective. When we learn to make that shift to George, we learn to create heart rhythms that are more smooth and more ordered, we enter a state called coherence, a high-performance state. It's good for us physically, good for the nervous system, for the physical heart, it's good for the release of these hormones in our body that regenerate us. And it's sending signals to the brain that are opening up those higher perceptual centers in the brain. That's when we get smarter. That's when we can see effective solutions to some of the challenges that we're faced with that are, you know, triggering the stress responses. So, the process that we have through tools and techniques and through our technology

• 8:52Speaker 02

  like the HeartMath app and the coherence plus sensor, is there are assistive ways in which we can learn to make those changes internally in our heart rhythms, to enter higher states of coherence. And when we do, we become the best versions of ourselves. We live life very differently. And we do begin to experience more of that fulfillment that I really want people to have. So, it kinda in some ways goes back to an old statement we've heard for a long time, which is the change of heart changes everything. And we've proven that physiologically now and scientifically. And we've done a lot of research. There are over 400 peer-reviewed research studies involving HeartMath, for example. So, research has been an important part of everything we've offered the world.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  And we've been able to quantify some of these sort of understandings or old things or old beliefs people have had about heart and show that in fact scientifically and empirically, they are real.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Well, that is powerful right there. And it makes sense how you describe it, that when I am in a sense of or a state of heightened stress, or I'm being chased, or just something bad is happening, that my brain is going to respond and give more resources to maybe survival systems, or just it's not going to allow me to unlock those higher states of consciousness that you're describing. And we're being triggered not because we're being chased by a lion, just by modern living.

• 10:26Speaker 03

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• 11:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, what triggers the coherent state is really the experience of, I'll call, sustained regenerative emotions, which goes right back to the things that have been said about heart. When we are appreciating life rather than complaining about it, we're naturally going to be more coherent. When we are showing someone compassion or care rather than judging them, we naturally move towards a more coherent state. So one of the key triggers to having more of this coherence in our system that's going to help us reduce that stress is learning how to better regulate our emotions and make emotional choices like the ones I just mentioned. You know, if I wake up one day and life starts to look a little gray for me, I'm not looking forward to what I have to do today and start complaining about it,

• 12:09Speaker 02

  recognize the schedule's a bit too much, I'm overloaded and have too many meetings, all that. I need to step back and change that, change that perspective and realize through the lens of appreciation that look at the opportunity I have to do what I do today. How many people get to do the things I get to do? How many people, for example, get to be with someone like you, George, on your podcast? You know, I gotta appreciate this. I can't just see this as work or complain about, I have so much to. When you learn to do that with a little consistency, over time, things can begin to shift dramatically and in ways that are significant in terms of the quality of life that we have. That's the really good news, and that's what I'm trying to convey to people is you

• 12:52Speaker 02

  have the power within you through this magnificent part of yourself called heart, both physiologically, emotionally, and spiritually, to rewrite your future, to create a life that's different from the one that you have now. And if people who are listening, if you, the viewer or listener right now is saying, well, he's kind of stressing me out talking about stress, just know you're not alone. This is a global issue, something we're all going through. And I don't want you to feel alone or feel like you're doing anything wrong. What I do want you to understand is that you have the power to change that. And that's the exciting news I'm trying to share today.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  I think that that is really exciting. One of my favorite sayings has always been how you look at something makes all the difference. But I'd never thought about it from the perspective of or from the reality of that there's an actual physiological benefit, more so than just kind of your mindset.

• 13:43Speaker 02

  That's right. We can all be in a traffic jam, for example. We're all in the same traffic jam. Traffic's not moving, right? You look around you, you see different reactions. If you just look, you see some people look resigned. They're just sitting there, just resigned to this whole thing. You can see their whole vitality is being drained. You see people that are angry. You see people, at times, I've seen people actually beating on steering wheels and things in the traffic jam. That's all about the perception of the event. You can also have people in that same traffic jam that may be saying, well, you know, it's a traffic jam, but this gives me a chance to slow down a little right now. Yeah, to take a break from it all. Traffic's going to move. When it moves, it's all okay. Same event, different perceptions of it. Some are a lot more stressful than others.

• 14:27Speaker 02

  You know, in the case of the person that's seeing it as an opportunity to slow down, the traffic jam is actually helping them regenerate. For the person that's beaten on the steering wheel, they're flooding their system with hormones they don't want, they're overtaxing their nervous systems, and they're draining a lot of energy, which is actually accelerating the aging process for them. So you're exactly right. I agree with what you said. It's all about our perception of the events of life.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  What a perfect way to, to explain or help people understand that is three people having, experiencing the same thing, but having completely different experiences and the actual effect that that has on your body in the moment, but also over the long term.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, when I wrote my first book with Doc Shoddy, the HeartMath founder, back in 1999, it's called The HeartMath Solution, we wrote a chapter in that book about stress. And I remember writing a part of that chapter on what I call the morality of stress. And what I meant by that was that even if we think we're right, even if we think we have a right to be stressed, a right to be angry, a right to be mad, the traffic jam is not fair, all of that, the body doesn't care. It's going to respond to that perception regardless of what our rationalization for it may be, because the body's just responding to what we're perceiving. And it's instantaneous, these responses. When we're looking at heart rate variability, which I mentioned earlier, we have seen very

• 15:54Speaker 02

  quickly that those heart rhythms shift almost instantaneously. We've done experiments, person in our lab, ask them to feel frustrated, jagged irregular patterns. Then we say, stop feeling frustrated, now appreciate something in your life. They do that with a little bit of meaningfulness, the heart rhythms instantly change. So our physiology is constantly responding to how we are reacting to what's taking place in our lives and the world around us. And so it becomes a matter of choice. Which way do we want to choose? Which road do we want to go down? It's not easy, but we do have ways, again, for helping people do that.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Certainly, personal agency is such a, such an important and valuable thing. And once we come to the recognition that, the realization that I have the ability to change the way that I'm viewing and thinking about this, and in so doing, dramatically improve my quality of life and my physical health and really everything, that's pretty profound.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, personal agency, I like that term. Can I borrow it?

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Please.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, we do. But again, it's, it's hard, and I get that. And so I have compassion and an understanding for a lot of what people are going through. It's great for someone like me to come on the show and say, you can make these changes. And they go, well, you don't really understand my life or the situation that I'm in. And to some degree, that would actually be true. But I have seen so many people over time make these internal changes and create a different, different level of fulfillment in their lives. It all comes from learning to listen to and apply what you hear from your heart in a certain way. Because it's, it's, heart is more than a metaphor, it's more than sentiment, it's more than romance.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  The physical heart is, again, information processing center in the body. Scientifically, it's been proven that heart-related emotions are the ones that regenerate us the most, you know? And then we've taken our research even further in understanding how that's impacting our mental function, opening us up for more intuition information. All these aspects of ourselves that are really already there that we need so much today to, to make sense out of these times we're living in.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  It's so interesting to me that it seems like the gut and gut health has had a ma- major renaissance of people having an appreciation for just how important that is. And why wouldn't our heart have and play a much deeper role than maybe we've been giving it its due for? So I'm glad that you're doing the work that you're doing.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  Well, thanks. There is a little gut-brain that's there. It's, it's, uh, it's important that we have that. It's a nervous system bundle in this area in the body, but the heart's nervous system is far more complex and it's sending information much further into the brain, for example. So getting heart and brain to work together is one of the keys to, to managing the stress that we're gonna experience in a different kind of way. And that's really what I'm trying to say today is that everybody has the capacity to do that.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  So I imagine that there are just practices that we can do, gratitude, things of that nature, but there's also physical devices?

• 19:09Speaker 02

  There are. We've created a technology that anybody can use now, not just scientific technology, that measures changes in heart rate variability through a patented algorithm. It scores and analyzes those heart rhythms and scores them for the level of coherence someone is in. So it measures very accurately the level of coherence that's happening in somebody's system. Just as importantly, or maybe more importantly, it trains you how to make those changes so that you naturally can increase your coherence baseline. It's done through, like most modern things today, through an app. It's called the HeartMath app. It's available in any of your favorite app stores. It's accompanied with a heart math sensor, a sensor that connects to, well, I have one right here, for example. It connects

• 19:54Speaker 02

  to your ear lobe, picks up your heart rhythms through the pulse, and sends them through the app. The app converts it into heart rate variability analysis and coherence scoring. And so it's an effective technology that anybody can use, and affordable technology that people can have, that allows you to see what's happening inside your body, whatever you're practicing and whatever you're experiencing. And then it gives you the training through the tools and the techniques and the videos and the audio programs that we have in the app. It becomes an educational tool as well. And it's being used by tens and tens of thousands of people all around the world in a variety of societal settings. Everything from people

• 20:36Speaker 02

  trying to improve their health, to high-performance athletes, to young children. I mean, it's amazing. And it's something that was born out of heart mass research, in an effort to, let's take the power of this type of analysis and put it in the hands of the people in ways that are simple for them to understand, that have a utilitarian value for them, that can create these changes within themselves physiologically and psychologically that are going to lead to less stress and more fulfillment.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  And that's where it all begins. We want to make big changes to the world, we must start with ourselves. And what better way than this?

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Well, thank you, George, for the show, for what you're doing to publish these type of shows to help people. And for you, the listener and the viewer, I just want you to recognize you're a good person, doing the best you can in challenging times. You know, go easy on yourself. We're all going to go through a lot of things right now as we go through this transitional era. And I want you to please take care of yourself. And if you can, I want you to please take care of others.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  That is well said. Well, Howard, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? And how can they engage with you and HeartMath?

• 21:51Speaker 02

  HeartMath.com, H-E-A-R-T-M-A-T-H, that's the name of the word. I just have a southern accent, so sometimes I feel like I better spell it out. I don't get what it is. But HeartMath.com. And you can find out more. There's lots of free resources there. You can see the technology I mentioned, there are tools, there are techniques. There's a lot of really cool things that are available to you, to someone through HeartMath.com.

• 22:14Speaker 01

  Love it. If you enjoyed this as much as I did, show Howard your appreciation. Share today's show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas. Go to HeartMath.com and check out all the different resources that Howard and I have been talking about. And I enjoyed this so much, because you've given me, you've built on my simple little trite saying of how you look at something makes all the difference, but it actually does make all the difference.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  You're a cool guy, George. Thanks for having me.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Thank you again. Until next time, remember, do your part by doing your best.

• 23:11Speaker 04

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