Heart to Heart

There are hundreds of stories around the world of couples, happily married for decades who, in old age, die within hours or days of each other. Take for example the case of Judy and Will Webb from Michigan who, at the age of 77, started to experience almost identical severe health issues. The couple who had been married for 56 years eventually died in hospice care on the same day from their illnesses. There are also similar cases of non-romantic pairs such as Carrie Fisher and her mother Debbie Reynolds. On 27th December 2016, Carrie Fisher died following a cardiac arrest. The following day her mother Debbie Reynolds, who she had an intense but close relationship with, died of a brain haemorrhage. Following their deaths, Reynolds son Todd Fisher said, “she wanted to be with Carrie”.

In the 1990s, Japanese scientist Dr Hikaru Sato began to identify signs and symptoms similar to a heart attack in people, usually women, who had recently experienced acute emotional stress. The condition became known as taktsubo cardiomyopathy, stress cardiomyopathy or broken heart syndrome. Although this condition is reversible and rarely results in death, bereavement or grief can cause serious physiological changes, some of which may be fatal. During times of increased stress, such as the death of a loved one, the body mounts an acute stress response including a surge of adrenaline, increased heart rate and blood pressure and reduced immune function. This may last for 6 months or a number of years. What is it that can cause a couple or close loved ones to die within hours or days of each other? The answer may not be taktsubo cardiomyopathy but it may still lie in the heart.

Humans are hardwired to be in sync or connect with each other. As Barbra Streisand sings in the movie Funny Girl, ‘people who have people, are the luckiest people in the world’. In everyday verbal and non-verbal interactions, we physiologically mirror the person we are with to build trust and deeper connections with our fellow human. Interpersonal synchrony can take the form of unconsciously changing our footsteps in time with the person we are walking with or mirroring the body language to the person we are talking to, to create a greater sense of empathy. Interpersonal physiology refers to the physiological changes that occur particularly in close relationships. Research has emerged in the last 20 years that has demonstrated a synchronisation of a couple’s heart rate and rhythms through touch, being in the same room as each other or by sleeping next to each other. Research has shown that the heart is not just a muscle that pumps blood around the body, it is also a sensory organ, capable of producing hormones and functioning as an information encoding and processing centre to mediate emotions independently of the brain. According to the HeartMath Institute:

The heart is the most powerful source of electromagnetic energy in the human body, producing the largest rhythmic electromagnetic field of any of the body’s organs. The heart’s electrical field is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain. This field, measured in the form of an electrocardiogram (ECG), can be detected anywhere on the surface of the body. Furthermore, the magnetic field produced by the heart is more than 100 times greater in strength than the field generated by the brain and can be detected up to 3 feet away from the body, in all directions.

It may be that couples synchronise through this electromagnetic field and can be positively or negatively affected by changes in their partners heart rate. Further research needs to be conducted to establish how these physiological changes occur. However, from a holistic perspective, we can see and feel the effects of grief, trauma, depression or loneliness on the emotional centre of the heart or the heart chakra. As practitioners we don’t necessarily need to quantify it because our patients will come in and tell their ‘heart-felt’ stories. Theirs and stories like the Webbs’ highlight the importance, beauty and power of the heart to heart human connection.

 

Bossone E, and Erbel R, (2013) Takotsubo (Stress) Cardiomyopathy, An Issue of Heart Failure Clinics
Buckley T, et al. (2012) Physiological correlates of bereavement and the impact of bereavement interventions
Bybee K, et al. (2011) Cardiovascular Disease in Women Essentials
Donleavy P, and Shearer A, (2008) From Ancient Myth to Modern Healing
Guarneri M, (2007) The Heart Speaks: A Cardiologist Reveals the Secret Language of Healing
Rennung M, and Göritz A, (2016) Prosocial Consequences of Interpersonal Synchrony
Timmons A, et al. (2015) Physiological Linkage in Couples and its Implications for Individual and Interpersonal Functioning: A Literature Review
Ting-Toomey S, (2012) Communicating Across Cultures
Yoon H, et al. (2019) Human Heart Rhythms Synchronize While Co-sleeping

 

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