Who is guiding your emotions: your brain or your heart?

When I mention heart health, what do you picture? Is it a hollow muscular organ that pumps the blood by rhythmic contraction and dilation?

Or a red heart ❤️ emoji?

Or do you think of the feelings of love, compassion, appreciation, and connection?

There’s a saying that the heart is “the locus of physical and spiritual being, and represents the central wisdom of feeling as opposed to the head-wisdom of reason." That said psychologists used to believe that the brain also controlled our emotions as well as intellect.

But don’t think this means the heart takes a backseat to the brain’s knowledge, or in its connection to how we feel. The function of the heart is much more than just a physical organ pumping blood through the body.

For starters, there is a documented emotional connection with the heart. Researchers have concluded that our emotional experience is actually created by the heart and brain working together.

According to the HeartMath Institute (a nonprofit that researches heart-brain communication and its relationship to managing stress, increasing coherence, and deepening our connection to self and others):

• Negative emotions affect the nervous system and over time affect the rhythm of the heart

• Positive emotions create balance in the nervous system and enhance our perception of the world around us

• Our lives are governed by the emotional and intuitive signals sent by our heart

• The heart is not only in constant contact with the brain, but it has its own intrinsic brain

• The emotional “feeling” brain develops before the rational “thinking” brain

• The heart produces neurotransmitters which at one time were thought to only be produced by the brain and ganglia

• The “heart brain” is composed of 40,000 neurons which means the heart has its own nervous system

• The heart sends more signals to the brain than vise-versa

• The heart is a key modulator of pain

Reflexology works through the nervous system as there are 7200 nerve endings in each foot. During a reflexology session, both the heart and brain reflexes are worked which may help to balance these organs and their connection. As the body relaxes during the session, pain can be reduced and emotions can be moderated.

Here’s to your health!