Find Coherence, Clarity, and More with the Inner Balance by HeartMath Mobile App!
Ready to find and track your inner balance? Well, I have just the thing for you! Today, I'm very excited to share with you a new mobile app (compatible with iOS devices) called the Inner Balance™ Trainer by HeartMath. It assists in training and cultivating coherence, allowing us the ability to monitor and improve our Heart Rate Variability (HRV) from anywhere, at anytime.
Heart Rate Variability and Coherence
I've written before about the HeartMath® Institute and their incredible impact on strengthening the connection between our hearts and minds. They have pioneered work in the field of HRV and "coherence" — establishing proven methods of enhancing mental clarity, creativity, and our ability to connect with others on a meaningful and productive level.
If you'd like a detailed refresher on HRV and coherence, check out my previous post. The short version is that how we feel directly relates to our heart’s electrical rhythms. Our emotions directly affect our HRV, and it correlates to our bodily systems such as blood pressure, tension, and inflammation.
Coherence is the optimal state of HRV, characterized by smooth heart rhythms and the harmonious function of the body’s mental, emotional, and physical systems. When we are coherent, we are alert, calm, and balanced. But, when our emotions seem to run amuck our HRV does as well. When our HRV lacks a pattern of steady oscillation, our body systems struggle for balance. This state, "non-coherence," results in a reduction in cortical function — an inability to communicate fully that leads to an overall diminished well-being.
When the heart’s energetic pattern is disrupted, we might continue to live and survive, but not to thrive. The good news is that there are relatively simple tools that help “reset” these electrical heart rhythms, and the Inner Balance mobile app is one powerful tool!
Develop Your Inner Balance
Inner Balance by HeartMath is described as "an innovative approach to improving wellness through training, education and self-monitoring." From my personal experience using this tool, I can wholeheartedly agree. Here's how it works (you can check out this video for more details):
Hook up the special Inner Balance Sensor to your iOS device and clip the sensor onto an earlobe. The Inner Balance app will ask you to select an icon corresponding with your current mood. Then you can begin your session, breathing in and out in time with the expanding and contracting image on your screen. The Inner Balance Sensor provides real-time feedback on your heart rate and corresponding HRV. Not only can you see the wave created by your heart rate, but color-coded icons provide a picture of your current level of coherence (red for low, blue for medium, and green for high).
Real-time coaching on the screen helps you maintain focus and achieve inner balance. After your session, the app provides a summary of your progress both in that particular session and over time as you continue to use the app. Increasing the "challenge level" gives you the ability to step up your training as you become more comfortable in the lower levels. The journal tab allows you to make notes on your progress, and keep track of discoveries or external factors influencing your coherence.
The Value of Developing Coherence
The concept of internal coherence has been researched and validated by physiologists, psychologists, and medical doctors across numerous institutions. Now, the Inner Balance app provides a valuable tool for developing coherence, monitoring progress, and practicing the skills associated with achieving a high level of coherence, such as meditative breathing, positive thinking, and developing a strong mind-body connection.
I've been using the Inner Balance app for several weeks now and have found it to be a remarkable teaching and monitoring tool in my own journey towards increased coherence. You can find the Inner Balance app at the iTunes Store (for free!) and buy the Inner Balance Sensor (which is required) here.
If you are trying to figure our your life. Start with clicking on the blue button below and download our free "Life's Grade Card" and start grading your life.
Ace Wagner is a business coach, advisor, and speaker who works with leaders, engaging both the heart and mind to achieve clarity of vision and build sustainable business relationships. You can find him on www.StartTalking.io
Being In the Moment: Connection and Decision Making from Our Authentic Self
Some years back I started to attend an A Course in Miracles (ACiM) Meetup group. We read the text together and talked about it at length. While I found immense value in the philosophy it espouses, I became particularly attracted to the language in the text regarding the difference between the Past, Present, and Future.
Make Your Well-being Your Responsibility: 5 Tips to Get You Started
Too often we think of our happiness and well-being as by-products of our success in life – “I’ll be happy when I get a promotion” or “I’ll feel better as soon as this project is complete.” We make our well-being a goal to be reached at a later date, dependent on the actions of others or conditional to other aspects of our lives. In doing so, we deprive ourselves of the possibility of health and happiness right now.
Is Your Life on Hold?
There have been numerous times in my life when I was offered an opportunity to make a change but chose to stay put, not move, keep doing what I was doing. I knew that my comfort zone kept me from exploring new horizons. I also felt that I had been called to do some really tough work with kids who had been abandoned, abused and neglected and I felt I couldn't leave them.
Over time though, my heart was no longer in my work. Not because of the kids but because of the negative energy that began to surround me from a variety of folks. I would arrive home after being in a fight or flight stance exhausted, drained and sad. It became a struggle to get up and return to an environment that I had loved but no longer served my higher purpose.
It is true that when one door closes another door opens. Once I made the decision to leave, several opportunities presented themselves to aid in my own transformation. People showed up in my life that were compatible with my vision and helped me to strategize the next steps in my life.
Here's what I would like you to do. I want you to start looking for opportunities. Ask yourself, "What is possible in my life?" "What are the nudges I have been ignoring?" "What are the messages that I have been getting that I have been pushing away?" My guess is you already know what the next step is. What are you waiting for? Let's take that step and begin a journey to your best self.
If you need help in figuring out what your next journey is. Download our free "Life's Grade Card" to help get you started.
Retrain Your Brain to Create Health and Happiness
If you're like me, you sometimes struggle with tension, stress, and negative thoughts. In today's fast-paced, complicated world, it's just not possible to avoid these things entirely. We all face struggles that can take over our minds and lead us down the rabbit hole of worries and doubts.
If you read this blog regularly, I'm sure you've started to notice a theme that runs through a lot of my work and my affiliations. I'm attracted to practices that help us embrace our inborn potential for health and happiness. Whether through “coherence” and the heart-focused communication approach of the HeartMath Institute, the techniques of The Arbinger Institute for creating clarity by addressing self-deception, or the teachings of A Course In Miracles, which help us find peace and joy through forgiveness of ourselves and others, I am drawn to philosophies and methodologies that empower people to make positive choices in their daily lives.
What are the Next Seeds in Your Garden?
Lately, I have been reflecting on my life and the different roads that I have traveled. When I take the time to really think about it, there were many seeds planted along the way that provided the growth and abundance that would lead me down my next path.
Those seeds included so many individuals, I can’t even count, including those negative folks as well. Funny how in retrospect, even the negative experiences played a role that helped me to find the right path that led me to the next stage in my journey.
What is the purpose of a seed? Seeds are a beginning of a new life. Sometimes we think that a door has been closed and we feel devastated. I know that when I experienced that feeling, it was usually because I had invested such a depth of myself into a part of my life that had needed to end. The original seeds had sprouted but eventually had withered and died. Parts of myself had also died and had become numb to life over time.
I am so grateful that I paid attention to the nudge that came and said, “It’s time to plant new seeds.” My seeds grew and prospered. Now it’s time to plant a new crop. I have been thinking about the next garden in my life and as Romeo Marquez says, “It’s time.” Stay tuned for the next beginning.
If you need help in what "New Seeds" you need to start planting in your life. Try using our "Life's Grade Card" to get your started. You can down load it for free!
A Conversation with Myself
I’ve noticed lately that many folks are uncomfortable having the needed and necessary conversations with self that open up the possibilities for a different life. For the most part, we are creatures of habit. We settle in and begin a day to day journey that doesn’t change much over time. We get up, go to work, come home, have dinner, numb out through TV, food or some other means, go to bed and then start it all over the next day.
We get nudges, inklings, ideas that things could be different but we shove it down hoping that things will stay the same and continue the way it has always been.
I suppose you could continue to live your life this way but at what expense? What is the real cost to your true self that occurs over time? It is time to begin the conversation.
Find a quiet place where you can sit comfortably and allow your mind to clear itself of the daily trials and tribulations that are wearing you down. Your questions are exactly that, your questions.
I can suggest some to get you started but you already know the questions that have been pushing at you for quite some time. Who are you? Who do you pretend to be? What is the first thing you think about in the morning when you wake up? What is possible right now in your life? What are the possibilities that are waiting for you to arrive? When will you begin? What are you waiting for? Let’s begin right now. Stop waiting. The conversation is ready for your best self to emerge. It’s time.
If you need help in getting started. Feel free to down load our free "LIfe's Grade Card" which will help you get started by grading 12 catagories of your life.
How to figure out what makes us happy in life!
Many times people come to our Life Coaches expressing a change they “want” to make in their life. They will spend the first hour with their Life Coach telling them that they have figure out and what change they “want” to make in their life. Examples are “make a career change”, “make a midlife change”, etc.