Get feedback on your state

Now it’s scientifically proven that the heart can affect the mind.

There are subtle changes in our bodies that affect and reflect our mental state constantly. Biofeedback is one way to become aware of and monitor these changes. Through this feedback, participants can then interpret visible or aural cues for their current and shifting psychological and physiological state.

Biofeedback has given me a whole new way of looking at my heart and its emotional well-being.

At Student Psychological Services, there are biofeedback devices for heart-rate variability and hand temperature. Heart-rate variability biofeedback measures slight differences, from heartbeat to heartbeat, while hand temperature measures slight degree fluctuations in the hands.

When your body goes into alarm mode, or “fight or flight,” there are noticeable temperature fluctuations in our extremities.

“When our alarm is off, our hand temperature is warmer and when our alarm is on, the blood gets shunted to our core organs and muscles. That’s a sign that you’re under stress, that your alarm is on,” said Dr. Alan Nagamoto, wellness programs director at SPS.

I, of course, was curious and tried out every biofeedback device available. I watched my hand temperature fluctuate, increasing with positive and loving thoughts and decreasing with negative or self-conscious thoughts.

Sitting in meditation with Nagamoto, my hand temperature increased with each calming breath. The moment I started having an anxious thought, my temperature dropped .2 degrees. The degree change occurred not only at the thought, but on the first word of the thought.

I brushed the thought off and watched the immediate .2 degrees immediately return to my hand , as the relaxation allowed my temperature to ascend.

Nagamoto has seen a resurgence in the interest in mindfulness and meditation. Biofeedback to him is an extension of these ideas.

“One message here is that stress is a natural part of life, there’s nothing we can do about that, but we can shift to a calmer place; even if something is upsetting, we still have a choice,” Nagamoto said.

The heart-rate variability booths are equipped with comfortable chairs and screens mounted on the wall. The actual device that senses the heart rate uses infrared light and clips to your earlobe. It offers visualizations, sounds and real-time graphs for between heartbeats, not speed, occurring from excitement or stress.

This displays the level of coherence, or the variability between the beats. This is seen as being aware rather than relaxed and is achieved through self-awareness.

The peace I felt by becoming aware of my body through awareness of my heart was akin to my experiences in yoga and meditation.

Nagamoto emphasized that the idea of biofeedback is using bodily awareness to achieve a coherent state, and that the device itself is not necessary. The core principle of biofeedback is mindfulness through our own personal physiological processes.

The center uses a three-step technique to achieve coherence. The road to coherence is found through self-awareness. The three-step process to coherence involves becoming aware of one’s breathing, becoming aware of the presence of the heart through the breath and finding a place and awareness of gratitude and love. A peaceful state can be found through many means.

The heart has long been associated with emotional impulse. Hormones have been proven to originate from the heart, and the heart itself sends neural and hormonal information to the brain, even containing many neurons itself, said Dr. Rollin McCraty, director of research at Heartmath, the supplier of the biofeedback devices for SPS.

The Graduate Student Resource Center has been coordinating wellness workshops with SPS to help the graduate students here at UCLA examine and work through their stress, said Christine Wilson, coordinator for the center.

Biofeedback is becoming popular. It’s used by Olympic teams, at other universities and even in some video games. Biofeedback at UCLA is available in groups or in one-on-one therapy. After attending a three-part group session, participants can use the devices on their own and check out portable biofeedback devices. The logistical and legal precautions of this are still being worked out.

Since my experience with biofeedback, I’ve become even more interested in psychological states. I’m aware of my heart as an organ, but also as a neurologically intelligent part of my body.

I’m concerned with how my brain can affect my heart, but now what I want to know is how my heart is affecting my brain.

E-mail Rood at [email protected].