Founded: 1991

The Institute of HeartMath is an internationally recognized nonprofit research and education organization dedicated to heart-based living – people relying on the intelligence of their hearts in concert with their minds to conduct their lives at home, school, work and play. HeartMath has been researching heart intelligence, stress and emotional management for more than 16 years and applied its findings to practical, easy-to-use tools that have been scientifically developed and tested.

Education – One of the greatest gifts human beings possess is an immense capacity for learning and it is our philosophy at the Institute of HeartMath that exploring how we learn and finding new ways to enhance that ability and constantly kindle it in young and old, regardless of capability, is a sacred and ceaseless undertaking.

It makes sense that the student who is agitated, anxious, fidgety or depressed might have difficulty performing at his or her highest level on tests, writing term papers or in other academic tasks. In contrast, it would seem the student who is calm, focused and in good spirits is more likely to perform better.

A simple enough deduction, but researchers at the Institute of HeartMath wanted proof and spent many years exploring the ways in which we learn. They identified a measurable physiological state that underlies optimal learning and performance. When our emotions are calm and our brain, nervous system and other bodily systems function with increased synchronization and harmony, we are in this state and we are highly in sync – physically, mentally and emotionally. This in turn, facilitates the higher cognitive processes critical for focusing attention, reasoning and creativity, all of which are essential for effective learning, academic achievement and social success.

Research – HeartMath is engaged in basic psychophysiology, neurocardiology and biophysics research, as well as clinical, workplace and organizational intervention and treatment outcome studies in collaboration with numerous universities, research centers and healthcare-system partners. This research has significantly advanced the understanding of heart-brain interactions, heart-rhythm-pattern and heart-rate-variability analyses, emotional physiology and the physiology of optimal learning and performance.

HeartMath’s research forms the foundation for the development of practical, scientifically validated emotional refocusing and repatterning technologies that enable people to significantly improve their health and vitality, performance and quality of life.

Expanding areas of interest include furthering scientific understanding of the human biofield, global coherence, intuition and the emotional energetic system. There are numerous studies in progress, a sampling of which is available in the Featured Research section. The Research Center’s latest project is the development of the Global Coherence Monitoring System (GCMS), a major undertaking that is an important part of IHM’s Global Coherence Project.