Being on The Same Wavelength - A Collective Coherence Study

(By Sara Childre)

You probably know how beneficial maintaining a high level of heart-rhythm coherence can be for your mental, physical and emotional health and well-being. Perhaps you use HeartMath’s Quick Coherence® or other techniques and the emWave® PSR or emWave® Desktop to raise your own coherence level.

Have you ever wondered whether raising your coherence could influence the coherence levels of those around you? Remember a time with a small group of friends or others when you all felt an extraordinarily close connection – like being on the same wavelength?

Steven M. Morris, Ph.D., founder of Singapore-based Steve Morris Associates, wondered about such questions and explored them in an independent study in September and October of 2008.

In the study, Achieving Collective Coherence: Group Effects on Heart Rate Variability Coherence and Heart Rhythm Synchronization, Morris, whose firm helps corporate executives and their teams achieve coherence in their work and personal lives, wanted to know: "whether a group of participants trained in achieving high states of heart-rate-variability coherence (HRVC) could facilitate higher levels of HRVC in an untrained subject in close proximity."

Writing about the study’s results in the July/August 2010 edition of the journal, Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, Morris said: "The HRVC of the untrained subject was found to be higher in approximately half of all matched comparisons. …

"These results suggest that a coherent energy field can be generated and/or enhanced by the intentions of small groups of participants trained to send coherence-facilitating intentions to a target receiver. This field is made more coherent with greater levels of comfort between group members. The evidence of heart-rhythm synchronization across participants supports the possibility of heart-to-heart bio-communications."

Various protocols were used in the study’s 148 trials over eight weeks. In each, groups of four participants – one Receiver, with no coherence training, and three Senders, with training – were instructed to employ one of the following protocols:

1. Senders raise personal coherence while Receiver remains in a state of quiet relaxation.
2. Senders raise personal coherence and consciously attempt, with care and compassion, to facilitate, or promote increased coherence in Receiver.
3. Senders raise personal coherence while Receiver practices HeartMath’s Quick Coherence Technique® (This technique can be found at: http://www.heartmath.org/free-services/tools-for-well-being/quick-coherence-adult.html) – explained on a cue card and briefly demonstrated by a researcher.
4. Senders relax while Receiver attempts to raise personal coherence.
5. Senders and Receivers relax quietly.
   

Another interesting finding in the study was that results were somewhat weaker when senders concentrated on raising the receiver’s coherence. "This suggests," Morris explained, "that trying too hard to facilitate coherence in someone else might actually be counter-productive. … Collective coherence can best be forged on the strength of personal coherence."

Read Morris’ entire article and learn more about coherence at Achieving Collective Coherence (The full article can be downloaded at: http://www.heartmath.org/templates/ihm/downloads/pdf/research/publications/achieving-collective-coherence.pdf).