It’s an age-old debate: should you listen to your heart or to your head?
Popular belief tells us that listening to your heart is the risky option of the two, while listening to your head is the safe, logical bet, but is that really, entirely true? Which should we actually listen to – one or the other? Both? Neither?!
We rely on both our heart and our head to steer us through many of life’s decisions major or otherwise – relationships, career pathways, houses and cars and gadgets, or even just what we want for dinner on that particular day.
Our brain likes to dictate what the ‘right’ decision is; its network of neurological frequencies working in cahoots to produce a seemingly sensible outtake taking into account our budget, our needs versus our wants, and other variables dependent upon the situation.
Our heart, on the other hand, tends to dictate the ‘truest’ decision – what we truly desire – and sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason behind this decision. It just is.
Or is it?
Those who believe the heart has its own mysterious way of knowing are not wrong.
Until the 1990s, scientists believed the brain was responsible for communicating messages and commands to the rest of the body.
But research shows us something incredible – something that might make a lot of sense to a lot of people. Our heart has a brain of its own.
Yes, the human heart is, in fact, a “highly complex, self-organised information processing centre with its own functional ‘brain’ that communicates with and influences the cranial brain via the nervous system, hormonal system and other pathways,” according to an overview of research conducted by the HeartMath Institute (Science of the Heart: Vol 1 (1993-2001)).
This heart-brain – the heart’s intrinsic nervous system – is made up of some 40,000 neurons, neurotransmitters, proteins and support cells – just like those found in the cranial brain.
In essence, our heart has the ability to feel, sense, learn and remember, and it communicates this to our cranial brain; messages which are then sent from our cranial brain throughout the rest of our body and dictate our quality of life.
These messages can be sent both ways (between the cranial brain and the heart-brain, and vice versa) but, perhaps unsurprisingly, the heart-brain can function independently of the cranial brain. And in actuality, the heart-brain sends out 60 times more electrical activity than our cranial brain.
So next time you’re tossing between your head or your heart, dare to listen to your heart, because technically you’re still listening to both but it’s the ‘truest’ decision for you at that point in time.
Sometimes, just sometimes, playing it safe is dangerous.
www.heartmath.org
Head v Heart
