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By Tim Lundeen  Beginning Noozer
Published: 23 October 2007 09:09 am

- We've traditionally tied emotion to the heart: words and phrases such as heartbroken, heartfelt, a heart full of love. Then modern science came along, and we were taught that all emotions really come from the brain, and that the body is just what the brain uses to survive in the physical world, that the brain is in charge.

As we study how the brain works, however, what we are learning is that the body is an integral part of our emotions. There is a feedback loop from the brain to the body and back. People who have damaged spines and lose the ability to move and feel their body also lose emotional responsiveness. Facial expressions feed back to your mood, and conciously smiling or frowning will make you feel that emotion (actors and actresses have this ability to create emotions more strongly than most).

The heart is an integral part of this brain/body feedback system.

Hugo Critchley, a researcher in this area, did a study that showed people who were more aware of their heartbeat, as shown by their ability to tell when ten musical notes were synchronized to their heart, had higher empathy and more activity in their right front insula. A follow-up study showed more gray matter in this area for people who have higher levels of empathy and are more emotionally aware of their own and other's feelings.

Studies in heart-rate-variability also show a tie between heartbeat and emotional responsiveness and well-being. As you breathe, your heartbeat rate changes. It drops as you exhale, and increases as you inhale. The change from minimum to maximum is your heart-rate variability. For people who are very responsive emotionally, this may vary by as much as 20 beats per minute; for people who are very tight, stressed, and closed in, there is typically a variation that is under 5 beats per minute.

The way your heart beats is also affected by stress. A high level of stress or emotional distress is reflected in a more irregular beat, with more higher-frequency components. When people take beta blockers to make their heartbeat more regular, they also become more emotionally accessible, less "flat".

Now when I hear songs or expressions talking about the heart, I hear them in an entirely different way