Gregg Braden walks through the Heart-Brain Harmonization technique that his Wisdom Traditions audience repeatedly requested. He frames it as a daily tool drawn from peer-reviewed research that lets the body return to coherence in a world whose pace now exceeds the nervous system's design tolerances.
Transcript
[Music] hello everyone greg braden here i want to begin by thanking you for sharing a little bit of your day with me today through through this media through this video you know for over 30 years i've shared with you new discoveries new discoveries based in science through my eyes as a scientist as i as i run across these discoveries in the obscure peer-reviewed journals that are often very technical in nature discoveries that are relegated to these journals and specific segments of the scientific population discoveries that you typically will not see in the mainstream you don't see this stuff in mainstream classrooms and textbooks many of the discoveries are so new i have medical students and medical doctors in my seminars asking me why don't we see this information in the universities why don't we know about these discoveries and the reason the answer is because it often takes years for the discoveries to trickle down from the research labs and the research papers into the application of of everyday life of every everyday medicine you can take six eight ten years for this to happen and that's why i want to share this information with you today because for the 30 years plus years 30 plus years that i've offered this content in my workshops and seminars and books and tapes and audios and videos and television programs and interviews and and now podcasts i've often referenced a discovery that was made in 1991 regarding the human heart this discovery that i often embed into those larger programs i want to isolate it and bring it to you right now because i think it's something that you can benefit from right now i say that because i benefit from it every single day of my life and i have for over 30 years this is the discovery that was made in 1991 published in 1994 the discovery of approximately 40 000 specialized cells in the human heart they're called sensory neurites they're essentially brain-like cells but they're not in the cranial brain now when i say they were discovered in 1991 they were always there it's perhaps more accurate to say they were recognized in 1991 but they've been with us from the time that we emerged as anatomically modern humans onto this planet and we know this because when we compare our genome today the dna in our bodies with the dna that we can now extract from the fossilized remains of our ancient ancestors what we find is that the genome hasn't changed that we we've had these capabilities from the time that we emerged on this planet so this ability that i'm going to share with you appears to be fundamental to our existence we're simply now awakening and growing in to the capability of its existence and what it can mean in our lives all right so the discovery 1991 40 000 specialized cells in the human heart forming a neural network that thinks feels remembers independently of the cranial brain now right there this is this is so important because that means every experience that we have in life is registered in two places in our cranial brain and in the neural network in our heart if they're good experiences no worries often we have experienced trauma in our lives and we we each interpret that trauma a little bit differently an experience that may traumatize one person may not be interpreted as trauma to another person and there are some experiences that are so painful universally they are our traumatic experiences and when we go to heal those experiences through counseling and through therapy often the counseling and therapy addresses the cranial memories and that helps and that's important but often we feel like something's missing and when we feel that what i'm saying saying to you what i'm sharing with you may be the answer as to why that is because the cranial therapies may not address the therapies or the the memories that we hold in our heart so this is a very very powerful powerful understanding that we have two independent neural networks here's where it gets really interesting and this is going to lead directly into what i'm going to share with you in just a few moments you and i are the only form of life that we know of today that has the ability to self-regulate our biology in very precise ways we are such advanced such highly sophisticated biological systems what is often called soft technology we're not talking about computer chips and wires and and chemicals we're talking about neurons and cell membranes and and and bone functioning in our bodies in in very very powerful and profound ways that we can self-regulate through thought feeling emotion belief breath focus and if those all sound familiar to you they happen to be uh the principles preserved and so are most ancient and cherished indigenous and spiritual traditions and i i think this is why they were preserved in the ways that they have been because they hold such a powerful potential in our bodies science is only beginning to to understand uh recognize and embrace this potential so the ability to harmonize the heart in the brain the ability to harmonize the cranial network with the network in the heart this neural network this is what is available to you and to me in a way that's available to no other form of life consciously at will and on demand you and i are the only form of life that we can sit down in a chair like this in a moment in time or wherever you are and say in this moment i choose i choose to harmonize the neural network in my heart and my brain two separate organs but we harmonize them into one potent system in our bodies and once we do that we open the door to a vast array of applications that i talk about in all the work that i do the books the tapes the the seminars the workshops i don't want to do that today what i want today what i want right now is i want you to have the the access to this technique because it is one of the most profound techniques to relieve stress very very quickly you and i are stressed every day of our lives through the uncertainty of what lies ahead the uncertainty of of finances of jobs of careers of relationships of where to live how to live what's happening to our country whatever country you live on what's happening to the planet because we all live on this planet that uncertainty uh triggers a level of stress a chronic level of stress that depletes the the biology it depletes nutrients and it compromises our immune system if you ever needed the strong immune system now i can't think of a of a better time than right now in the midst of a global pandemic however you think about that pandemic it is taxing your immune system through stress right now so let's get into this i i want to just give you a little context so that you know this is not a metaphor this isn't make believe i want you to see what you're accessing and then let's go through this exercise together so the first thing that i'd like to share with you is is an image of precisely what it is that we're talking about and what we're going to be dealing with what we're going to be accessing within our hearts what you're seeing on the screen are called intrinsic cardiac neurons these are the neurons that we have access to in our heart that also can communicate with our brain through principles of self-regulation that we're we're actually going to do together here in just a few moments but i want you to see this so that you know that we're not talking about a metaphor or a make-believe or a wishful concept you know so often in literature in our history when we talk about the heart it's from a very lofty uh philosophical perspective and it's good and the heart fulfills those lofty philosophical ideals but what i'm talking about right now is rock solid science this is peer-reviewed science these are the neurons located in the heart that form the neural network the image that you're seeing now all of those little blue dots illustrate where this neural network is this begins to tell the whole story look look at where this neural network is it's not at the bottom of the heart it's at the top near the places number one where the valves open and close to send the blood into our bodies and number two where the arteries and the vessels enter the heart so the blood can come into the heart or leave the body these neurons are around those specific places now the way that the valves open and close send a pressure wave through the blood that is a language unto itself your heart speaks a language to your body through the pressure wave that is created every time the the heart beats and that pressure wave tells the body it sends a signal and it tells the body what kind of chemistry to release into the body whether it's a stressful chemistry or if if you're feeling safe it's a different that's a healing and rejuvenating chemistry or uh it tells the body what kinds of hormones need to be addressed and how to address those all from the way that the valve is opening and closing and that valve opening and closing is largely regulated through these neurons and the neurons are responding to you and the way that you feel about yourself about your relationship to the world if you feel safe if you feel threatened if you feel a sense of well-being or if you feel a sense of high anxiety chronic anxiety with no way to reconcile that anxiety so that is one function of these these sensory neurites near the valves they're doing the same thing near the arteries the blood that enters the blood that leaves these are regulating blood pressure and the way that blood is is flowing in the body you and i live in a stressful world our world is changing as as i mentioned earlier and we're not being giving given any way to reconcile the stress we're not given any sense of where the change is leading all we know is that what we used to know in the past is gone and we're in the middle of some event that is changing our families our communities our society our nations it's changing the way we work it's changing the way we think about money about security all of that but we're not really being given a way to reconcile that so that we have relief from the stress that's why i want to share this technique with you because you and i are going to self-regulate our body to give our bodies relief from the stress within even though nothing may have changed in the world around us to give us that relief this is a very very high form of mastery when you can find relief from a stressful world even though the stressful world is still out there it's a very very high form of mastery so i want you to see that we're dealing with something that is real new scanning technologies now make this even more real what you're going to see is a three-dimensional scan of the human heart where this neural network resides so what you're seeing right now this is this is the scan i love this technology and the yellow that you see near the top of the heart this is where the neural networks or the neural network of the sensory neurites resides i'm going to highlight it for you right there you can see it so this is important because once you see this you cannot then see it once you see this you have a sense that you're dealing with something real and that you are communicating with a physical part of your body that simply is not acknowledged in the mainstream typically that that's beginning to change but most uh most high school and college tech book textbooks are not talking about this this neural network in the way that we are so now that you know now that you know what we're dealing with how do we use it how is it applied you are the only form of life you and i we're in this together we're the only form of life with the ability to consciously self-regulate the neurons in the heart and how they communicate with the neurons in the brain we are the only form of life that can take the neural network of the heart and the brain two separate organs but harmonize this neural network into a single potent system in our bodies and this is where our highest levels of mastery begin because once we create this harmonized state it opens the door to a plethora a vast array of potentials and possibilities that are the subject of my books and tapes and videos and audios and workshops beyond the scope of what i'm going to talk about here right here i just want you to have the technique so that you can relieve the stress at least once a day maybe multiple days or multiple times through throughout your day so what we're talking about visually two organs the heart and the brain but look at this becoming a single system by sending the correct signal from the heart in the brain establishing a link a very low frequency length 0.1 hertz really really low frequency when we can set up a relationship send a signal between our heart and our brain of 0.1 hertz we establish this harmony all right now i just i i just have to do this because i am a geologist and the geologist to me wants you to know why 0.1 hertz is so important you know why isn't it why isn't some other why isn't it a 440 for the musicians i'm a musician you know it's one of the questions i asked why not a440 or why not some other frequency 0.1 hertz is a very very important frequency on this planet so what you're seeing is a cross-section of the magnetic fields of the earth and when we look at what are called the magnetic field line resonance frequencies i don't want to get really technical but i want you to see that this is this is real what you're seeing is a graph of these field line resonant frequencies the first spike where the red arrow is the frequency it's not zero it's not 0.2 look at this it's 0.1 that first spike is the primary field line resonance frequency of the planet we live on what that means is that when we harmonize our heart and our brain to that frequency not only are we harmonizing the systems within us we are harmonizing our system to the bigger system of the planet we live on wow that is where your healing begins when you bring your heart and your brain and your biological systems and your organs and your cells and your glands into alignment with the fundamental frequency of the system of our planet that is where your healing begins this is where you find your power now if we lived on another planet someone asked me once yeah it would probably be a different frequency but right now we're on earth and 0.1 hertz is the frequency that we want to to harmonize to so so when we harmonize our body and this is a i love this image not only are we harmonizing the systems within us we're harmonizing ourselves to the plan that we live upon in a very real sense 0.1 hertz is love to your body when you create this harmony between your heart and your brain and align your systems you are loving yourself in the language that your body your biology recognizes and that love is now extending you're harmonizing yourself your loving mother earth this is a very very powerful technique three very basic steps that we're going to use i'm going to talk you through them again with permission from the institute of heart math their science parallels so many of the traditions that i've found in studying and living with indigenous peoples today as well as in the literature of the ancient and the the forgotten peoples of our past that recorded the techniques of how they achieve these high levels of harmony because when you do this this is when you relieve the stress this is when you enhance your immune response this is when you trigger the longevity enzymes that allow for regeneration rejuvenation and healing and so much more we talk about in the other programs so let's do this together i'm going to invite you to share this with me and please do this only if you're in a place that's safe do not do this if you are driving any kind of machine or operating any heavy machinery please do not do this find a place that is safe where you can allow your uh your focus a hundred percent to move to yourself without having being worried about what's happening in the world around you so we're going to shift our focus from our mind to our heart we're going to slow our breathing and we're going to create a very specific feeling i'm going to talk you through each of these right now so you won't need any notes or pencil and paper let's just do this together if you have not already done so i'm going to invite you to close your eyes [Music] and allow your awareness to move from the world around you to the world within you and i'm gonna do the same thing right here allow your awareness to move from your outer world to your inner world and the first step is to shift your focus from your thinking mind into your feeling heart one of the ways that scientists have found to help us achieve this is exactly what our indigenous ancestors and ancient traditions invite us to do and that is to simply touch your heart in a way that's comfortable for you with a finger or two fingers or a full hand or an open palm whatever's comfortable for you and allow your awareness to go to the place where you feel that sensation where you feel that touch this is the first step and everything we do for the next two steps will reflect this focus it will all happen as if the focus is coming from the heart it's all about the heart second step we'll invite you to slow your breathing just a little bit slower than you would typically breathe and i know that's different for everyone so the key is to exhale for a period of time that is longer than the inhale exhale for a period of time longer than the inhale the reason for this is because this is a language to the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic nervous system telling your body that you are safe so for ease i'm going to recommend maybe five seconds on the inhale and eight seconds on the release and you can tailor this to whatever it is that you need to do with your awareness in your heart to invite you to breathe in for five seconds with me begin [Music] and release for eight and just feel that shift in your body inhale again on five seconds release for eight [Music] let's do this again five seconds inhale [Music] release [Music] to the best of your ability if you can continue to breathe just about that pace or whatever pace works for you breathing in slower than you would typically breathe and releasing allowing your release time to be longer than the inhale second step the third step is where we send this very powerful signal from our heart to our brain 0.1 hertz what scientists have found is that when we can feel the feelings of well-being of gratitude appreciation care compassion positive life-affirming feelings these are the kinds of heart-based feelings that establish this low frequency link to the human brain 0.1 hertz is the optimum for convenience just to make this easy and universal for all of us i think it's probably easy for all of us to feel gratitude whatever's happening in the world we all know it could be worse could be worse in our lives i'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to be with you here in this way today sharing a part of our days by remembering this primal this ancient and primal uniquely human experience to give ourself healing and life no matter what's happening in the world around us so i'm going to invite you with me the best of your ability let's feel that feeling of gratitude and i'm going to give you a minute to do this it will seem like longer but if we can do this for one minute and then we'll come back and uh and talk about this experience okay so to the best of your ability continue to breathe as if your breath is coming from your heart slowing that breath and while you are slowing the breath feel that gratitude just breathe in and release those feelings of gratitude with me begin and you might actually in your mind say thank you thank you for my life thank you for the life and the safety of my friends and my loved ones those are all things that we could be deeply grateful for right now just feel those waves of gratitude as they ripple through your body from your heart i'm doing the same thing [Music] [Music] remember to breathe it's a little bit slower than usual [Music] okay with one more breath i'm gonna invite you to inhale as you release that breath slowly begin to open your eyes become present in the space that you've created for yourself i'm doing the same thing right here please do not be deceived by the simplicity of this technique this technique has been with us in our memory and our bodies from the time that we emerged 200 000 years ago because this technique the state of being a state of consciousness is the state that we find ourselves in when we're born into this world and young people are in this harmonized state until they're conditioned out of it early in life so if it feels familiar to you this may help to understand why it feels familiar as i mentioned this technique is just the beginning from this harmony there are so many things that we can launch into from this this state of optimized biology this is the place where we we would do our deep states of intuition we can enter to from here if we're going to use affirmations you would use them from this place if you want to optimize your body before yoga before physical performance before martial arts before sports this is the place where you would do this if you want to optimize your body before performance of of music this is the place that you would begin and then go forward to do these things the scientists recommend optimizing this this technique for about three minutes at least three minutes three minutes of this technique sends a signal to our body begins a cascade of chemical experiences that last up to six hours where our stress levels decrease the levels of cortisol decreases while the dhea the precursor to every hormone in our body increases over 100 percent just from three minutes of doing this you awaken the longevity enzymes you strengthen your immune system just from three minutes of doing this because you've removed the stress that depletes the immune system so there's so much more that we could do from here truly heart brain harmony is just the beginning that you now have a tool that you can use every day in your life at least once a day in your life to give your body relief from the stress of a world that's changing in a future that is unknown and for that i am grateful for this time together thank you so much for sharing a few minutes of your day with me today you