Love Lab

Love isn’t just sweetness. It’s science, too. Love isn’t passive. It’s powerful.

So for all you PALs that need a little left-brain stimulation too, here are some amazing factoids and scientific studies into the quantifiable properties of loving energy. Be prepared to be amazed. While there’s no written test after this science lesson, you will be expected to demonstrate what you’ve learned by being a PAL to someone out in the real world upon its completion.

Check out these scientific, peer-reviewed journal studies from the Institute of HeartMath.

Love Power Beats Brain Power:

The electromagnetic energy field generated by the heart is 5,000 times stronger than the energy field generated by the brain.  So don’t feel bad that you can’t remember half of what you learned in high school algebra class.
McCraty, R. The energetic heart:  Bioelectromagnetic communication within and between people. Clinical Applications of Bioelectromagnetic Medicine 2004; 541-562. http://www.scribd.com/doc/152636779/The-Energetic-Heart

Love is a Two-Way Street:

When two people touch in a loving way, the energy from the giver’s electrocardiogram (ECG or heart energy) actually transfers to and can be measured in the receiver’s electroencephalogram (EEG or brain energy).  The two people don’t even have to be touching, just near each other, for this transfer to begin.  Time for a group hug!

McCraty, Ph.D., Rollin, Atkinson, Mike, Tomasion, B.A., Dana, Tiller, William. “The Electricity of Touch: Detection and Measurement of Cardiac Energy Exchange Between People.” Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, (1998): 359-379. Web. 31 May 2011. http://www.heartmath.org/research/research-publications/electricity-of-touch-page-3.html.

Love Knows No Boundaries:

Test subjects were given test tubes of DNA to hold as they generated thoughts and feelings of love.  In less than two minutes, the DNA strands opened up, stretched out and expanded.  When the subjects switched to feelings of hate, anger or frustration, the DNA strands shrank down, contracted and even switched off some of their genes!  When the subjects were separated from the DNA samples in different rooms, the same results occurred.  The study ended when the subjects were a half mile away from their samples with the exact same results!  Time and space are nothing for the power of love!

G. Rein, R, McCraty. Local and non-local effects of coherent heart frequencies on conformational changes of DNA. Proc. Joint USPA/IAPR Conference, Milwaukee, WI 1993. http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/uploads/HeartMath%20article.pdf.

Love is Psychic:

Intuition is real and it begins in the heart, not the brain.  Test subjects were shown a random selection of calm and emotional still video images, with a six second blank screen between each.  Calm images were landscapes, animals and household objects.  Emotional images were erotic or violent in nature.  The results conclusively showed that during the six second break between images, (the blank screen), the subjects could tell what kind of image was about to appear.  This pre-knowing registered in their heart data first, and then moved to the brain.  Let love lead you by listening to your heart first…and then your wife.

McCraty, PhD, Rollin, Mike Atkinson, and Raymond Trevor Bradley, PhD. “Electrophysiological Evidence of Intuition: Part 1. The Surprising Role of the Heart.  Journal of Alternative and Complimentary Medicine. 10.1 (2004): 133-143. Print. http://www.heartmath.org/templates/ihm/downloads/pdf/research/publications/intuition-part1.pdf.

Love is Connection:

When we can manage our emotions properly and live from a heart-centered perspective, we become more intuitive, healthier and think clearer.  Not only that, but on an energetic level, our inner “coherence” contributes to the world’s energetic balance because everything is connected on a quantum level…and you thought one person couldn’t make a difference.

McCraty, PhD, Rollin, and Doc Childre. “Coherence: Bridging Personal, Social and Global Health.” Alternative Therapies in Health & Medicine. 16.4 (2010): 10-24. Print. http://www.heartmath.org/templates/ihm/downloads/pdf/research/publications/coherence-bridging-personal-social-global-health.pdf.

Did you know…

…fear makes you dumb?

When you’re stuck in negative emotions likes fear, anger, frustration or resentment, you’re less intelligent.  All fear-based emotions put your brain into a fight-or-flight reaction.  When that happens, the brain thinks the body is in mortal danger, even if it’s just your crazy boss that’s yelling at you and you’re not being chased by a tiger.  It can’t tell the difference.  Danger is danger.  In stressful moments, the brain pushes most of the blood used to fuel cognitive functions at the front of the brain to the reptilian or hind brain near the back, where your most basic instincts exist.  At the same time, all the blood that normally feeds your internal organs with nutrients and oxygen gets rerouted to your arms and legs, preparing you to either fight or run away.

Think about it.  If a tiger was charging toward you, would your brain be concerned with analyzing which was the shortest or most scenic escape route to take.  No!  You just RUN!  When we are in fear-based emotions, we don’t think.  We just react.  It also deprives our internal organs of the proper blood flow, nutrients and oxygen, so we become more prone to sickness and disease.  When we live in love, we’re smarter and healthier.  Check out this great video of Dr. Bruce Lipton on the biology of perception and how choosing to live in love affects our health.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjj0xVM4x1I

…your cells respond to loving words.

Japanese scientist, Masaru Emoto, began photographing ice crystals from water in 1994.  He found that only water from pure lakes or rivers would yield the perfect hexagonal shapes that look like snowflakes.  Tap water, bottled water and lakes or streams near cities would not crystalize.  Emoto went on to discover that water responds to the energy in words.  Vials of water with labels like “ I love you” or “thank you” taped to them produced beautiful crystals.  The same water kept in vials with labels like “You disgust me” and “I hate you” would not crystalize and yielded misshapen forms.  He also found that polluted or tap water would crystalize if exposed to loving words.  In one of his most famous experiments, a group of people in Galilee, Israel sent loving intentions to a vial of tap water on his desk in Tokyo 6,200 miles away.  The group simply looked at a photo he’d sent of the water vial on his desk, recited a loving phrase three times and paused for one minute of silence.  In the test that immediately followed, the Tokyo tap water crystalized perfectly.

Emoto is also famous for placing two cups of cooked rice in separate jars, one with a label that said, “Thank You” and the other with the label, “You Fool”.  He used cooked rice because of its water content.  He placed both jars on a shelf in a 3^rd grade classroom.  As the children came to school each morning, they were instructed to speak the words to the respective jars.  After 30 days, the rice in the jar that received the loving words was as white as the day it was cooked.  The rice in the jar that received the cruel words had collapsed into a black gelatinous mass.  This experiment has been repeated many times.  Below are links to two.

Think about it.  Words carry sound and vibration.  Sound travels 3-4 times faster through water than air.  Your body is over 70% water.  Every time we choose to use loving or unkind words, the effect resonates in our cells.  That doesn’t just include the words we say to others, but also our inner “self-talk”, too.

More Links
http://ourmagnumopus.wordpress.com/about/the-rice-experiment/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sbzCaEsHfw
http://masaru-emoto.net/english/water-crystal.html