Have you ever thought about the inter-connectedness of the heart and the mind? Beyond the physiological pathways, there are implications that there are connections that extend even deeper! I've compromised a few thought-provoking quotes from various articles to support this concept.
"Our thoughts and emotions can affect our heart health, and what happens to the heart, likewise, can influence the health of the brain. Solid research now links PTSD, anxiety, depression, Parkinson’s disease, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia to increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), and studies associate CVD with impaired cognition, white-matter damage, cerebrovascular disease, and dementia. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, postmortem studies show that as many as eight in ten patients with Alzheimer’s also have heart problems." Gehrman, E. (October 2023). Heart-Brain Health: A Two-Way Street. Harvard Medicine. Heart-Brain Health: A Two-Way Street | Harvard Medicine Magazine
"The interoceptive system provides us with awareness of internal body states. The interoceptive system receives information from sensory neurons in our internal organs and communicates information about body states and emotions." "The most widely used way of measuring interoception is by heart-beat detection tests. People with good interoception awareness can detect their heartbeat with high accuracy. In contrast, people with poor interoception awareness struggle to detect their heartbeat accurately (Ponzo et al., 2021)." Neff, M. What is Interoception and How to Improve Yours. Neurodivergent Insights. What is Interoception? (neurodivergentinsights.com)
"Pythagoras (c. 570–c. 495 BC) had described the soul as consisting of three parts–intelligence, reason and passion. The seat of the soul extended from the heart to the brain, passion being located in the heart and reason and intelligence in the brain (Prioreschi, 1996)." Pandaya, S. (2011). Understanding Brain, Mind and Soul: Contributions from Neurology and Neurosurgery. NIH National Library of Medicine. Understanding Brain, Mind and Soul: Contributions from Neurology and Neurosurgery - PMC (nih.gov)
While there is still much to be understood about how the heart and mind relate to each other, there is no uncertainty that they are! We can all learn to deepen these connections in our own ways.
