HeartSpheres

Intervention

Enhancing performance, developing resilience

The Intervention is based on heart rate variability training and emotional management (self-leadership skills). 

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Training 

Over the last years scientific research into HRV has shown that it is a highly correlative predictor of morbidity , mortality , risk of accident and performance (e.g. Framingham study – see also Research).

HRV is the degree to which the heart speeds up or slows down: the greater the variability and the higher its order, the more resilient we are, the higher our performance and the healthier our organism.

Measuring HRV - the changing intervals between two heartbeats - gives an accurate picture of the ability of the body to recover from stress and strain.

It also reveals the impact of lifestyle and emotions on our general health.

As we grow older HRV reduces naturally, indicating the biological age of our body. HRV reduces further with ill health or long-term stress. A low level of HRV indicates that an individual is at risk of developing a serious illness, poor performance or aging prematurely.

Research shows that HRV levels can predict future ill-health, as well as the likelihood of sudden death due to cardiac or other causes.

Advances in our understanding of HRV and chronic disease give us valuable new methods of preventing, diagnosing, and treating severe long-term conditions.

If we can maintain our HRV at a high level, this will benefit our health and performance. It significantly enhances brain function such as concentration, focus, memory, flexibility of response, intuitive insight, judgment and decision-making (cortical facilitation).

Exercises that unlock the health-sustaining and health-creating power of increased and coherent (regular and ordered) HRV include:

• Deepening and slowing the breathing
• Creating and sustaining of positive emotions such as inner calmness, appreciation and confidence.
• Establishing of performance enhancing and health promoting  rhythms in work and at home.

Focusing simultaneously on positive emotions, the heart and specific balanced breathing techniques leads to improved performance, enhanced resilience and improved physical and emotional health in the short and long term by enhancing Heart Rate Variability and system coherence (alignment of organ function).

These techniques can also help manage the impact of stress and enhance performance by improving the way the brain, heart and metabolism interact. 

Emotional management (Self-leadership skills)

Emotions do not just affect individuals but also affect the structure and working climate of organisations. An important part of leadership is actually about emotion management.

It involves recognising ones own and other peoples’ moods and emotions, as well as the capacity to manage them.  (Self-leadership, emotional intelligence)

Organizations are emotional places; they use emotions to motivate employees to perform. An emotional working environment wants to be created that supports high performance by enhancing motivation and job satisfaction (inspirational leadership).  

Various events in organizations create emotions and affect an employee's sense of satisfaction or outrage. Our sense of organizational identity is connected to how we feel.

Scientific research has shown that emotions strongly determine performance, resilience and health. (See Research).

Negative moods or emotions can harm employees’ health, affect how they react to pressures and can cause bad judgements and poor decision-making (cortical inhibition) and result in low productivity and poor results.

Recent research even suggests that all decisions are emotionally based, and that logic is used to provide a rational explanation for whatever decision is taken. 

Negative moods, like pessimism, optimism, melancholy, resentment, anger and anxiety, affect a person's health, their morale, their desire for improvement, their commitment to the process of change, their ability to problem-solve and their creative and innovative thinking.

Scientific research further shows that positive moods and emotions are an important prerequisite for the development of resilience, enhanced performance (cortical facilitation) and health.  

In a workplace dominated by the emphasis on rational and logical thinking, the role of emotions in decision-making and effective action has been often neglected. Many managers and leaders become victims of their emotions, which are affected in a climate of crisis. 

Emotional management skills are necessary to reach an optimum productive state. 
Current research shows that by acquiring emotional management skills and techniques managers and leaders can more readily create positive and productive results in every aspect of their lives.

(See also Research)