Feeling The Heartbeat

Before you do anything else, it is already happening. It has not stopped once.

The heart. Roughly the size of a fist. Located slightly left of centre in the chest, behind the breastbone, surrounded by the lungs. It began beating approximately three weeks after conception, before there was a brain to tell it to. It will not stop until it stops. It requires nothing from you.

Put your hand on your chest. The left side. Apply slight pressure to feel through the muscle in your palm. Wait. There. The beat arrives. Lub-dub, the medical version of the two sounds the valves make when they close. The first sound is the mitral and tricuspid valves closing. The second is the aortic and pulmonary. All of this in four chambers, beating in sequence, seventy times a minute without your involvement.

Some people find the heart hard to locate by sensation. Try the pulse at the wrist instead. Two fingers on the inner wrist, below the base of the thumb. Press gently. Wait. The pulse arriving. The wave of pressure from each heartbeat travelling through the arterial system, reaching the wrist perhaps 0.2 seconds after the heart itself contracted.

This is your specific rhythm. Nobody has this exact rhythm. The heart rate varies continuously, a phenomenon called heart rate variability, each beat slightly different from the last, the heart responding to breath and thought and posture and temperature and a thousand other inputs every second. It is not a metronome. It is alive.

Breathe in. The heart rate rises slightly during inhalation. Breathe out. It falls. Every breath produces a tiny undulation in the heart rate. This is the respiratory sinus arrhythmia, a sign of a healthy nervous system, the heart and lungs in continuous quiet dialogue. You can feel this if you pay close attention.

Breathe slowly and feel the heart slow with you. This is not imagination. This is vagal tone, the parasympathetic nervous system applying the brake to the heart via the vagus nerve. Every slow exhale increases vagal tone. The heart physically calms in response to your breath. You have more influence over the heart than you normally exert.

In many contemplative traditions, the heart is the seat of something beyond its mechanical function. The ancient Egyptians believed it was the location of the soul and weighed it at death. In Indian traditions, the heart chakra, anahata, is the centre of love and connection. The Chinese character for the word thinking contains the character for heart. The body's own wisdom has always known something here.

Put both hands on the heart centre now. The warmth of the hands meeting the warmth of the chest. Feel for the beat.

This beat has been with you since before there was a you to have it. It has accompanied every moment of your life without asking for acknowledgement.

Give it acknowledgement now. That is all. Just notice it. Just be with it for these few breaths.

The most reliable thing you have. Still here.

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