Is Heartmath A Pseudoscience: What Exactly Is It?

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Many people are asking, “Is Heartmath A Pseudoscience?

Many are confused about Heartmath’s claim to transform stress and anxiety into resilience through certain powerful techniques – techniques that put you into a coherence state.

A state that enables you to think clearly, objectively and take charge of how you feel.

To get an answer to Is Heartmath a Pseudoscience, the whole concept needs to be explored. We need to give scientific reasons to prove if Heartmath is what they say it is.

I feel so excited writing this article, and I hope you do too. This article revolves around many lives, especially young folks who know nothing about the Heartmath.

After reading this article, you will get to know what this device actually is.

Join my boat, and let’s sail through the waves of the “Heartmath Sea.”

Contents show

What Is Heartmath?

Heartmath is a system of technologies used worldwide by families and thousands of individuals. It came into the scene in 1991, claiming it could recognize and solve stress, anxiety, and anger.

The main idea is to work on people’s heart coherence and resilience.

The product is currently being sold by a non-profit corporation based in California, called: The Institute of Heartmath. And the founder goes by the name Doc Childre (Note: he is not a medical doctor).

Basically, his philosophy is that the human heart resides in the center of all human experiences. The bigger picture is much more interactive and relevant to us than just pumping blood around the whole body.

When you scroll through their website, this is what it has to say about the product, “A global shift is underway, and more people are sensing it involves a deeper connection with their heart.

This desire for more heart connection is a growing movement, one that people are drawn to by a nudge from their own intuition or conscience to listen to their heart more and to connect with their inner guidance.”

Is Heartmath a Pseudoscience?

According to Heartmath, it has developed a system of effective, scientific, and technological-based tools to bridge the heart and mind’s intuitive connection. They say this deepens our connection with the heart of others.

There are further claims the system empowers those who use it to self-regulate their emotions and behaviors to reduce stress, increase resilience, and unlock the natural intuitive guidance so they can make more effective choices.

And to also break through greater levels of balance, creativity, health, and insight.

Does The Heartmath Truly Do What They Say It Does?

The tool’s general foundation revolves around a device called Heart Rate Variability (HRV), which measures the parameter in the R part of the QRST wave (which includes Q wave, T wave, R wave, and S wave) of a normal heartbeat.

Normally, with a regular heartbeat, there is variability between the beats, as the variability increases, the healthier the heart.

Low HRV is normally considered a predictor of death associated with heart attacks. In that, doctors can pay more attention to individuals with reduced HRV.

The only thing they’ve done differently is taking the concept of the HRV and tying it to the emotional health of users.

Certainly, no one can really be sure whether these processes indeed reduce stress and affect individuals’ general performance and happiness.

How Does It Work?

Heartmath is basically a heart rate variability monitor with software that graphs HRV, displaying it on a screen. The graph produced by the device looks like a sine wave.

To attain what they call coherence, they introduce you to their relaxation techniques. They claim you can improve your mental abilities, mental acuity, and heart performance through this channel.

Unfortunately for them, it just took some time for people to notice that you can easily achieve what they call coherence by simply doing regular deep breathing.

Is The emWave Personal Stress Reliever Unique?

The emWave Stress Reliever cost about $199.00. The product sends you notifications when your HRV achieves a coherence level.

It has not provided any scientific evidence or consensus to back this, though. In fact, there is no review journal available that I’ve come across.

Its research work is published in a book called “Brain And Values: Is A Biological Science Of Values Possible?” with an editor who is part of its staff of advisors.

Ultimately, you can visit their website to look at what they do to decide for yourself.

Which Group Of People Uses Heartmath?

Heartmath is normally used by individuals with headaches, migraines, chronic pain, fatigue, insomnia, diabetes, asthma, cancer, and other related diseases.

However, anyone can use it. But before you try it, make sure you’ve understood the concept fully.

What Is A Session Like?

After your baseline has been measured, they develop a protocol that changes the pattern of signals arriving from your heart to your brain.

According to Heartmath, this reinforces a positive emotional shift that is generated by your body.

How Do Participants Try It?

Normally, interested participants buy the software for use in their homes. They also put their practitioners in certain communities.

Which Should You Choose: Sensor or emWave?

If you own an iPhone, iPad, or iPod and desire to reduce stress, tension, or lower your blood pressure, then the sensor is what you should go for.

However, if you don’t own any of these devices but still want to participate in the experience, you can opt for the portable emWave2 device.

Coming back to the question at hand, is heartmath a pseudoscience?

To agree to this completely and wholeheartedly is quite a dangerous path for me to tread upon. More scientific evidence will be needed to back this claim.

The science behind the device is too opaque to believe. Often, the best form of lies has a component of truth at its epicenter.

Of course, the argument is that the heart generates an electromagnetic field around anything in the body. However, this is no news to the scientific community.

We know the heart generates this form of the field because, in general, muscles are electrical tissues, and electrical systems regulate the heart in itself. Through this means, the heart sends out signals across the body.

When an individual engages in any form of physical activity, the muscles send electrical signals across the body in the same order of magnitude as the heart.

The heart, in-turn, sends energy waves (pulse) across the body. None of these terms has anything to do with the claims of Heartmath and coherence.

These facts were foretold and used by scientists long ago.

For most pseudoscience, when you spend some time digging into the core of what they say, you will normally find out that they are just pulsed meters prone to noise.

There’s not enough scientific data to test and validate the core foundation of the Heartmath being pseudoscience. But hey, to its numerous users, this tool walks on water.

Is The Science Backing The Heartmath trustworthy?

I personally don’t consider the science backing the heartmath dependable. In Heartmath research booklet, this set of hypothesis guide the research:

“Human and animal health, cognitive functions, emotions, and behavior are affected by planetary magnetic and energetic fields.
The earth’s magnetic fields are carriers of biologically relevant information that connects all living systems.
Each individual affects the global information field.
Large numbers of people creating heart-centered states of care, love, and compassion will generate a more coherent field environment that can benefit others and help offset the current planetary wide discord and incoherence.”

These are serious claims. As a physicist, I may not find enough evidence to back up these hypotheses.

Conclusion

Is heartmath a pseudoscience is a question we are still trying to find an answer to.

I may agree or disagree with the Heartmath experience, but the final decision is yours to take. In fact, as mentioned earlier, many rate Heartmath highly, and others think it’s too good to be true. The power to choose and to decide is in our own hands.

I have shared this thorough work with you to help you know about the whole Heartmath experience.

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