[.ca] Transforming Anger: The Heartmath Solution for Letting ... (ISBN 157224352X)

Timely exploration of mind-body emotional health:
This book builds on the most recent research from the Institute of HeartMath about the connections between the heart, nervous system, and emotional processing. It promotes a type of biofeedback application called FreezeFrame which uses heart rhythm coherence monitoring with emotional skill-building techniques to help handle anger, anxiety, and other negative emotional reactions. By integrating the body (especially the heart and nervous system) with subconscious emotional processing and conscious awareness a holistic model of resolving emotional issues is outlined. This approach is quite valuable, and both experimental and clinical evidence are increasingly showing the superiority of mind-body approaches as compared to drugs and talk-oriented therapies. A new book by a University of Pittsburgh doctor called "Instinct To Heal" discusses this trend further. In fact, my own clinical observations lead me to conclude that medications tend to perpetuate psychological difficulties, as they merely repress natural symptoms produced by the mind-body feedback system and often trigger further impairment of internal balancing mechanisms. Just as people can feel "better" while they are taking alcohol and other recreational drugs \oespecially when they have ongoing access to drugs to avoid the withdrawal phase\c, people will often feel better under the influence of prescribed psychotropics, not realizing that they are just suppressing a natural feedback system and temporarily escaping from an opportunity for healing and integration. Once the drugs wear off you can have major problems in addition to any immediate adverse effects that may have been triggered by drug use. Fortunately, HeartMath techniques can be used with or without medications or any other types of therapies and interventions, and I suspect that they would be very useful in helping people wean themselves from drugs by helping restore the body's natural coherence and regulatory abilities. The HeartMath approach can provide lasting emotional healing and is supported by solid research, some of which has significant implications about the nature of consciousness and reality that challenge status quo beliefs in the healing arts and sciences. This book explains the HeartMath research and therapeutic approach clearly, and anyone seeking more information about the technology and software can visit the Institute's web site.