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Welcome to Islamic Life Co School Podcast. Apply tools that you learn in this podcast and your life will be unrecognizably successful. Now your host, Dr. Donald Upler.
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Hello, hello, hello everyone. Peace and blessings be upon all of you. Today we're gonna be talking about coherence. Coherence is a measurable biological state in which your heart, your brain, and your nervous system are moving in an organized rhythm. In this state, signals rise and fall in a clean pattern and they don't contradict themselves. Coherence is a state where your physiology doesn't waste any energy with internal conflict. And overall, the efficiency of your output, the efficiency of the experience of your life improves. If you really think about it and we talk about the inner intelligence of the body, coherence is one of the measures of this inner intelligence. Coherence as measured by heart rate variability, and these are all definitions that I'm going to be providing you. Coherence is the measure of the order that the autonomic nervous system brings to your body. Incoherence, on the other hand, is what happens when activation in your body stays unresolved and you're trying to work efficiently and you're trying to experience positive emotions, but unfinished business has not been addressed. When a previous triggered emotion wasn't allowed to complete, the nervous system keeps firing as if it's still under threat. This is when the heart rate variability goes down. Okay, so this podcast might seem like it's very scientific and it's possibly true, but I'm going to give you definitions of all of these terms because these are very heavily used in positive psychology today. And I want you to be able to understand at a very simple level how these terms and these research findings are foundational and absolutely life-changing if you're able to apply them. So heart rate variability refers to a phenomenon where your heart does not beat like a metronome. It does not go thump, thump, thump at the same rhythm, at the same distance every time. A healthy heart, an emotionally sound nervous system has a heart rate where it's variable, meaning the distance and the timing between each beat changes. The tiny changes in the timing of each heartbeat is called heart rate variability or HRV. It's a simple measure of space between heartbeats. And since the space between each heartbeat is not the same, sometimes it's shorter, sometimes it's longer. Heart rate variability refers to a measurement of how your autonomic system is functioning. Is it functioning hand in hand together towards the same goal? Or is it functioning with internal conflict, like having a foot on the gas pedal and the brake pedal at the same time? Meaning it's working incoherently because that state is highly inefficient. A heart rate variability that goes up and down in a pattern creates a sine wave, a smooth up and down peak and valley like a wave pattern. And a heart rate variability that is measured in incoherence is jagged, irregular, and erratic. So that now that you know what heart rate variability is and what coherence and incoherence is, I want you guys to be able to apply it practically because there is no science valuable in the world more than what can be used to enhance your life. What happens when people first learn about coherence and incoherence and heart rate variability is that they start measuring all of these things using the aura ring or their smartwatches or their phones and they start interpreting that data to shame themselves even more. If you're gonna go down this route of using this information and being highly organized in creating coherent states for yourself, first order of business is to not use this information to induce more guilt and shame on yourself. All of these data points that you gather from these devices is completely neutral. How you interpret it is going to create your internal emotional state. So if you're using this information and this data to feel bad about yourself, you are already in incoherence and the whole process is sort of backfiring. So first of all, stop using that data to feel bad about yourself and use it for the purposes it's actually meant for, which is to give you information so you can create variations in life that produces a more coherent heart state. The other thing that people get wrong is that they try to replace a disorganized state with positivity. They try to think their way out of a physiological problem. Coherence happens when the nervous system is allowed to reorganize itself, when an activated, charged negative emotion rises and falls instead of being on a continuous loop. Your physiologic state is very complex and it can hold a lot of difficult emotions, including sadness, anger, grief, fear, and all of that does not mean that the internal state has to be chaotic or erratic. While these emotions are associated with incoherence, it does not become physiologically damaging until the incoherence that happens when emotion gets stuck inside the body. And it keeps the body on permanent alert. And once you understand that, you're going to stop trying to discipline emotions and you're gonna start respecting the physics of your nervous system. You're gonna start respecting the cycle that the emotion needs to take in order to complete itself. So going back to heart rate variability, which is the space between each heartbeat, the difference in timing between each heartbeat. And that timing is being controlled by your nervous system. One part of your nervous system helps you speed up so you can move, focus, protect yourself, the sympathetic nervous system, and the other part helps you slow down, rest, digest, and recover. That's the parasympathetic part. Heart coherence is what happens when those two parts take turns smoothly inside of your body to manage the incoming signals. Heart coherence is the measurement when these two systems aren't fighting with each other to be activated at the same time. Think about riding a bike. When coherence is low, it's like riding a bike while trying to press on the brakes and pedaling hard at the same time. You might still be moving, but it's going to feel very exhausting and jerky and inefficient. The timing between each heartbeat is going to become messy and erratic because the nervous system is sending mixed signals. One part is saying go go go, the other part is saying stop, relax, take a timeout, and your heart rate is trying to respond to both. This is why the HRV looks jagged during prolonged stress. On the other hand, the very important nuance is the heart coherence is not about feeling calm or happy all of the time. It's about your body working together with good timing, even when you're activated. When you are in coherence, an HRV is the ruler that we're measuring this coherence with, when the pattern is smooth, your body wastes less energy and recovers better from negative emotions. When the pattern is messy, your body has to work much harder in order to perform at the same level. An incoherent state is a very metabolically expensive state. This is where HRV is unpredictable. The timing between each heartbeat is unpredictable. This reflects the mixed and the competing signals that your autonomic nervous system is sending your body. So the nervous system responds to your emotional state and it creates the emotional state. So it becomes an internal loop. And the way to break that cycle is again like I teach you guys is with your conscious thoughts. Research from a lot of these institutes, including HeartMath Institute and other psychophysiology, shows that the moment an emotion gets activated, meaning you have a thought and a resulting emotion, it changes the timing between these heartbeats. The sustained states of appreciation, love, gratitude create an organized, smooth HRV, meaning the difference between the timings of the heart is predictable. None of these states mean that the difference between the timings of the heart or HRV disappears, meaning the timings remain different, but they become predictable. Other states, such as anger, frustration, anxiety, disrupt this timing. The timing still remains variable, but it is very unpredictable. It is jagged, it is messy, it shows internal conflict and a higher physiological cost. Organized timing improves efficiency across the brain and the body. Coherence reliably correlates with well being, clearer thinking, better performance, better health outcomes. Now I've talked about this already a little bit, but the real problem begins when these observations are flattened into a rule about emotional positivity all the time. Heart math data and peer-reviewed neuroscience point out a very deep mechanism. The deciding factor if you stay in sustained, high and organized HRV versus disorganized HRV, a state of coherence versus incoherence, the deciding factor among these two states is whether the emotional signal that you're experiencing in your body is able to reach a completion, meaning the emotion is able to be integrated, digested, organized. If that doesn't happen, the body remains active without resolution. When an emotion is allowed to rise, be registered and settled, regardless of its charge, meaning it doesn't matter if it's a positive or a negative emotion. The nervous system eventually reorganizes and the rhythm returns. And this is the most fascinating difference. This happens regardless of whether the emotion you felt was pleasant or uncomfortable. When a negative emotion stays unfinished, when it continues to be replayed, when it's held in suspension or continued to be suppressed, the activation keeps looping and the heart rhythm stays disorganized. What HRV is really showing you is that the nervous system has the ability to track the completion and resolution of a difficult emotion. The core question we're trying to answer with HRV is not if you are feeling a negative or a positive emotion, is that whether the signal has finished moving through your system. Unprocessed emotions create physiological noise because the nervous system stays on alert and it never receives the signal that the experience is over. If the initial emotion was stress and the heart rate variability registers that, it creates changes in rhythm, breathing, muscle tone, your internal chemistry, all of that happens, but eventually without processing, the response stays partially activated at all times. This is what's the harmful part. Instead of a clean rise and fall, the signal fragments, which shows that your heart rate and your physiology is trying to adjust to a threat that no longer exists, that is only existing by it being replicated by your mind. This is why even mild stress can create continued states of incoherence, especially when it becomes chronic. Yes, mild states of stress do create incoherence, and that is measurable. But the point isn't to not feel stress. The point is like you're going to feel stress when a big exam is coming up. The point is to let go of the stress after the exam is over. The point is to use the energy of the stress to perform better in the exam and channel all of that adrenaline and attention towards memorizing and performing well in the exam. A small and unresolved stressor replayed day after day keeps the nervous subtly activated, leaking energy continuously. Over time, this background noise taxes the system heavily more than a short, intense emotional surge that is allowed to complete costs. This is why strong negative emotions do not automatically cause damage. When the nervous system returns to order after the emotion is processed, the heart rhythm reorganizes. Energy goes back to being conserved and being used efficiently. The body is designed naturally to handle this level of intensity. Damage to the body comes from prolonged incoherence. And rumination is one of the fastest ways to lock the nervous system into incoherence because it keeps the emotional signal running without allowing it to finish. Instead of responding to what is happening now, the body keeps responding to the mental signals of what is being replayed in the mind. Research shows that people who ruminate heavily have a low HRV, which signals a diminished parasympathetic regulation, a diminished rest and digest response. And what's striking in this state is that the emotional suppression or the rumination doesn't disappear during rest, even if you are physically resting. When the body outwardly looks like it should be resting and recovering, the HRV is staying low, indicating that the system is still working as if the stressor is still present. And this is the damaging part. Over time, this type of pattern is associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk and increased poor health outcomes overall. And multiple studies have shown that. And this doesn't happen because the original event was extreme. It happens because the nervous system never let go of the original threat and keeps playing it on a loop. The most beautiful point is that the body is no longer reacting to the original stressor. It is reacting to the mental replay. And this is a beautiful part because we can stop this mental replay. Rumination is under your control through your thoughts. What a lot of people are doing in order to be able to regain coherence and increase their HRV is going through emotional suppression. Without realizing it is that there is no fooling the system. Just because you pretend the emotional doesn't exist does not mean that your physiology is not responding to it. Emotional suppression creates a dangerous illusion of control because it blocks expression of the emotion without resolving the underlying activation. The nervous system continues to register the emotion as unfinished. Even when you're trying to act calm and act steady, studies continuously show that emotional suppression fails to improve HRV. Cortisol levels still stay high, the body is still under a threat response in the background, heart rate continues to be erratic. All the while you as a person might be outwardly appearing calm and going through the motions of life. In this case, your nervous system is expending energy just to be able to contain the emotion rather than completing it. When HRV is incoherent, the nervous system is functioning in a state where survival efficiency takes priority over reasoning and nuance. All of the internal resources are directed away from the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is responsible for accurate judgment, timing, empathy, long-term perspective, decision making. And a lot of us know this state very well because this is the state where we make decisions and take actions in a way that we regret later, that is not in line with our highest values. Our communication either shuts down or is very unhelpful. And it makes total sense because the nervous system is trying to manage a threat instead of engaging in relationships. This is why when you take actions in unresolved negative emotions, they more often lead to regret. Coherence refers to a presence of an organized physiological rhythm in the nervous system. It describes how cleanly a signal moves through the body, how well the timing is coordinated, and how efficiently activation rises and falls. In the coherent state, the heart rhythm shows order, predictability, adaptability, even while a full range of emotion is present. Sadness, anger, fear can all be present without the system collapsing or without it hijacking your behavior. Short term emotional content does not determine long term coherence. The organization and your response to the negative emotion creates long-term coherence. Becoming coherent starts with understanding where emotions actually come from. Your emotions are physiological responses that are generated by thoughts. Coherence begins when you realize that while thoughts may arise automatically, staying inside a thought loop is optional once you notice it. Rumination is not a genetic or personality trait that you're born with. It is a repeated decision that you take mentally to replay the same meaning over and over again. Coherence cannot return until this loop that is feeding the activation is finally stopped. A shift into coherence happens when you interrupt rumination and allow the body to complete the emotional response. It does not require fixing the original thought that created the emotion. It does not require for you to quickly replace the thought with a better one. It just requires reorganization. It requires integration. Sometimes that may look like slowing the breathing. Sometimes it may look like allowing the sensations of the body to exist, noticing without commentary, without judgment. And in those moments, coherence comes back online, not because the situation changed, because the Your nervous system started to process it differently. Action taken from coherence carries a completely different signature into the world. Your voice, your actions, your face is steady and relaxed. You can make eye contact, you have better social cues, your movements are intentional, your nonverbal language exudes leadership and magnetism and charisma, and all of the people around you will feel it before they understand what's happening. Coherent people do not rush, they do not over explain, they do not seek validation. They naturally fall into leadership roles because everyone is attracted to them because of the energy they exude. For you as a Muslim woman, coherence shows up everywhere in your life. In your marriage it might look like addressing a recurring issue, speaking without defense, setting clean boundaries. With your in-laws it might look like presence without your justification of your values. You answer a question without making it an explanation about yourself. Your nervous system in a coherent state communicates confidence, self respect, and it happens without any verbal communication. Because in a coherent state, people respond to your embodied signal of authority. In parenting, coherence looks like firmness and love without any threat. You can give an instruction once, and you can give it with authority, without any shaming or emotional bargaining. And children feel that clarity because their nervous system is also engaged to co-regulate with yours. At work or in your community leadership, coherent actions look like speaking less and being heard more and creating a lasting impact. In none of these states are you defending your competence. In none of these states do you have to prove yourself. What you're broadcasting through the radio station of your nervous system and other people's nervous systems are picking it up as an antenna is that you're certain and you're contained and you're and that you're well grounded. This is the natural outcome when your nervous system is not leaking energy by trying to contain itself into survival mode. Coherence is not something you can fake or perform. When your body completes a cycle of an emotion and you break rumination, coherence is the natural outcome. From that state, your actions become clean and powerful. Maintaining a high HRV is the living state of coherence because it reflects how adaptable, how resilient, and how efficient your nervous system is under real life conditions. High HRV does not mean that you are relaxed and feeling positive all of the time. It means that you have the capacity to shift smoothly between activation and then go back to recovery. A nervous system with high HRV responds to stress and pressure without getting stuck in those states. A coherent nervous system with high HRV mobilizes when it's needed and settles when those moments pass. And this flexibility as measured by HRV is one of the strongest predictors of long-term physical health. It also predicts your emotional stability, your cognitive performance, your leadership potential. High HRV signals a strong parasympathetic tone and a balanced autonomic regulation. And this balance protects the cardiovascular system, it lowers your inflammatory load, and it reduces the wear and tear on your body caused by chronic stress chemistry. Coherence keeps the system efficient. Energy is used for creating, connecting, living, leading. The body is able to recover faster and faster from each survival state. For a Muslim woman who carries layers of responsibilities and is trying to efficiently multitask, coherence is absolutely protective. It allows you to carry different spectrum of emotions, including sadness and anger without shrinking your life. It prevents you from being in chronic, overfunctioning, and people pleasing state. It prevents you from carrying silent resentment because your low HRV is going to be a dead giveaway when you're trying to suppress emotions. A high HRV is going to signal when you've returned your nervous system into safety. A coherent nervous system is the one that engages in deep devotion, creating clean boundaries, valuable service and leadership, and it does that without self-betrayal because it is not running on an emergency mode. With that I pray to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. O Allah, bring rhythm to my heart in order to my nervous system. Let my body return to balance when life pulls me into strain. Help me release what is unfinished and settle what has stayed alert for too long. Grant me clarity in my heart and presence in my actions and let my strength come from coherence. Allow the Muslim Ramah to engage in leadership through coherence. Amin Ya Rabul Al Amin. Please keep me in your draas. I will talk to you guys next time.
