Heart-Rate Variability Training (HRV)

There is a fair amount of research suggesting that, when the autonomic nervous system is working properly–not over-stressed–heart rate dances around like a barefoot ballerina on hot concrete. When stress levels are high, it tends to become rigidly locked into certain rates. The more variable the rate, the healthier the heart. Hence, training HRV is reputed to have a positive effect on both the heart and the brain.

HRV is an excellent training–like almost all peripheral biofeedback–of activation in the autonomic nervous system. When you are in sympathetic mode (fight-or-flight), as many stressed people are, your heart speed is driven by the adrenal system and is very stable. When you move to parasympathetic (rest and digest) mode, which should be dominant for most of us most of the time, there are multiple ganglia that can be controlling heart rate depending on the body maintenance functions are being performed, so the heart rate is more variable.

It is very useful to learn to get out of the sympathetic mode and remain in parasympathetic, but as far as I’ve been able to tell, that doesn’t necessarily have an effect on brain activation patterns.

Heart Math is at the forefront of HRV training devices. For their product called the EmWave, I clip the EmWave sensor onto the client’s ear, start the software and verify that I have a good heart signal, then open the feedback screen the client likes and sit back in my chair.

I believe that the clients who most need HRV are the ones most interested in understanding the graphs and the numbers and evaluating how well they are doing, etc. And the trainers who are most interested in that probably have never really learned to get into a highly coherent state (as defined by Heart Math). When people ask me to explain what they should do or how to make the feedback happen, I just tell them to slow down their breathing, look through the screen, not at it find something positive and happy to focus on, and other equally useless suggestions. People usually stop asking me how to do it and what it means after a session or two. Then they start to make progress. I think there is a great analogy to riding a bike: the more so-called help you have–especially from someone who wants to explain HOW to do it, the longer it takes you to learn. Once you are riding, you probably can’t explain to anyone else exactly HOW you are doing it. You just do it. That’s the way it is with most brain training.

Appropriate Session Length

How long one trains doesn’t really matter. If someone gets into the state fairly quickly but has trouble staying in it, I may stop the session after a few minutes and have them focus on what they did differently between the beginning and when they started to lose the feedback. Many people take 15 or 20 minutes to relax and get bored enough to stop trying. Those I train longer.

Goal of HRV Training During Session

It’s to get feedback. In order to do that, your heart-rate should slow down and become more variable. In order to do that, you autonomic nervous system needs to shift into parasympathetic mode–“rest and digest” instead of “fight or flight.” Feel calm, relax, find positive, happy, loving, beautiful things in your focus.