Have you ever tried to meditate and thought, “I can’t do this! I just can’t clear my head.”? Join the club.

Like anything else of worth it takes practice. No one scores a touchdown, performs a flawless presentation or achieves much of note on their first try. With meditation, simply making the effort is enough to make a difference.

With regular practice it gets easier and easier. Better yet, the brain physically rewires itself for positivity, reducing cortisol (related to anxiety and depression) while increasing function and performance. Making it part of every day, even for only 5 minutes, improves how you feel and live your life.

Society teaches that our minds are in the driver’s seat―controlling our thoughts, emotions and bodies. What’s not as well known is that our heart actually sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart!

Scientists now know that the heart is more than a blood pumping device. It’s a hormonal gland with its own wildly powerful nervous system. An intelligent system that produces hormones and neurotransmitters greatly effecting brain and body function.

The heart’s nerve network has over 40,000 neurons, so sophisticated that it’s now known as the “heart brain.” It learns, remembers, plays a role in intuition. Astoundingly, its electro-magnetic field is so much larger than our brain’s we don’t yet have tools capable of measuring its full size.

Research from HeartMath Institute shows that emotional stress drives an erratic heart rhythm that drastically reduces cognitive and emotional function. This limits our ability to think clearly, remember, learn, reason and make effective decisions. Conversely, sustained positive emotions result in a coherent heart rhythm that helps our systems synchronize and work better. By training our hearts to coherence, mental, emotional and bodily processes achieve a state of optimal function.

We can achieve this coherent state through HeartMath. A heart-focused meditation technique (with biofeedback tool) that with consistent use can improve sleep, increase focus, restore energy, balance emotions, increase intuition, creativity and more…even help heal chronic anxiety and PTSD. War veterans, first responders, trauma survivors and 300+ peer-reviewed or independent studies state the case.

High stress levels are now known to affect way more than our emotional and mental states, leading us straight into chronic disease. Meditator and teacher Michelle says, “After being diagnosed with PTSD and an immune system disorder caused by severe traumas, I was unable to sleep more than three hours a night, filled with debilitating nightmares. I couldn’t function through brain fog and memory loss. My health and life were a mess. I was in constant fight or flight mode. HeartMath played a huge role in curing my insomnia and enabling a happy and healthy life.”

Michelle Lee is an artist and workshop facilitator practicing in the Poconos, Wyoming Valley & Lehigh Valley of PA. For more information visit www.MichelleLeeArts.com or call 570-443-7777.