The Everyday Awesome Project
The Everyday Awesome Podcast is your mega dose of multivitamins for building your mental muscles, physical body and an empowered life. Your hosts Polly and Sam are on your dream team; lifelong coaches in business, health & fitness and human potential. They are on fire to ignite change in the lives they touch.
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The Everyday Awesome Project
99: Heart Brain Coherence Practice with Coach Polly
Coach Polly Solo this week! Stressed, scattered, or stuck in analysis mode? Here’s a powerful reset you can do in the time it takes to boil water. We walk you through a three-minute inner alignment practice grounded in the science of heart-brain coherence—no fluff, just a clear method to calm your nervous system and think better under pressure.
First, we reframe where control lives in your body. The heart’s neural network and the vagus nerve send a constant stream of information to the brain, shaping your hormones, attention, and choices. When your heart rhythm is jagged, the body reads danger and floods you with cortisol, narrowing focus and hijacking judgment. When the rhythm is smooth and steady, your system shifts toward safety, creativity, and repair. We unpack coherence in plain language, including the 0.1 hertz breathing cadence that supports calm, and why longer exhales are your fast lane back to clarity.
Then we get practical. You’ll learn a three-step method—hand on heart, slow controlled breathing, and vivid gratitude—that reliably reduces stress chemistry and boosts DHEA, the “vitality” hormone tied to immune strength and resilience. We explain when to use it for maximum impact: before tough conversations, during high-stakes decisions, ahead of negotiations or public speaking, and as a non-negotiable morning ritual. You’ll also experience a guided practice so you can feel the shift from “scrambled” to “steady” in real time.
If you’re ready to trade reactivity for presence and make choices from your wiser self, this is your blueprint. Try the practice today, save it for your morning routine, and share it with someone who needs a quick way to reset. If it helped you find your true north, tap follow, leave a review, and tell us where you used it next.
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Hey superstars, welcome back. Polly here and no Samantha Pro today. It is a solo episode. Samantha is taking care of her well-being. If you listen to our previous episode, she is dealing with a little bit of um or a lot of bit pain. So we wish her the best and can't wait to have her back on a future episode. So we're thinking of you, my dear. And today we're talking about my inner alignment, my three-minute inner alignment secret or practice that I wanted to share with you. And, you know, it's one of my well-being secrets. It's the single most powerful tool for, I would say, emotional regulation, you know, finding focus and just overall freaking well-being. Like I way do you see? I've pulled together a lot of background on this because I've adopted this and discovered this over many years. And um I just want to share it with people. You know, I'm going to be sharing it more and more with people to help get the word out about this. So I call it my three-minute inner alignment practice or, you know, tuning into your true north. And it's backed by decades of neuroscience. I mean, like this stuff works. It's not just, you know, ooh, woo-woo, you know, I'm I'm the woo-woo queen on our podcast. But um, yeah, if you really look into it, this stuff is based on science. Um, and so we're talking today about the science of heart-brain coherence. Okay, so if you haven't heard that, maybe you've been told that the brain is a command center, right? That's your command center, right? And a lot of us in Western culture, we walk around like that's the source of everything. We actually think we live up here in this brain, like in this skull of ours, you know, because that's where our view is and we think a lot up there. But, you know, if you if you study, you know, the first organ that's created in a baby in a mother's womb is the heart. There's no brain present, there's no mind brain present. The heart starts beating before the brain is even formed, right? So what if I told you that the heart is actually a dominant communicator in your entire body? Your heart is sending more signals to your brain than your brain is sending to your heart. That I think changes things. That changed some things for me. I was like, whoa, and you know, we've gone on to discover that there's a heart in your gut. I'm sorry, there's a brain in your gut. There's a heart in your gut. Well, there's probably a heart in your gut, too, with all those little belly bugs down there. But really want to talk about, you know, the brain in your heart. And yeah, it's just fascinating. So we won't go too much into it, but by the end of this episode, you will understand the profound science of why your heart holds the key to lowering your stress levels and the hormones, helping you make better decisions, more sound decisions aligned with your soul, right? Your heart's true wanting, right? And even longevity. I mean, like, hello, if I just said, like, who wants some of this, right? Like we'd be handing it out on the corner. People are like, give me some of that. Yeah, yeah, give me some of that. Right. So we will walk you through, or I will walk you through, the three-step technique. And we'll actually like, I'll tell you what it is and then I'll walk you through it. So if you're listening to this, you might want to like pull over or go somewhere. We'll get there in a minute, but I'm gonna tell you some things in advance. Um, but you'll have an opportunity to experience it today. So uh look look forward to that. Um, it's ultimately a tool of self-mastery. I find that this is part of my morning ritual that has been in place for many, many, many years, and it's non-negotiable. You know, when you don't do it or when you do it erratically, you don't get all the benefits. You can definitely get the benefits when you use it as a tool, and I'll share with you like uh opportune times to, but I would say do it every day. Do it in the morning. So it's like non-negotiable, you always have it. But let's start with the science. Okay, so your second brain, or you know, which one came first, right? So your heart's uh, you know, it's private network. So, you know, we have to start with a foundational discovery in 1991. Um, they're called, uh they discovered a cardiac neuro neural network, and they made this incredible find that there are 40,000 sensory neurones that exist in the heart. Like, whoa, these are like brain cells inside your heart. They form an intricate, independent neural network. Your brain is a form of neural network, and well, guess what? You've got one in your heart as well. The heart literally has its own brain, it processes information, it learns, and it remembers. And I would say it stores, like it remembers that stuff, you know, without the head even being involved. Isn't that amazing? That's amazing. So, this network is what makes the heart the dominant communication center. The heart is constantly sending information to the head, um, you know, to the brain via the vagus nerve. We've talked about that here on this podcast before. The vagus nerve is basically the superhighway of your nervous system connecting the gut, the heart, and the brain. Super important, right? Super important. Samantha's dealing with some of this with some uh her back is out, and so it's it's damaging and it's causing a lot of pain in her nervous system right now and stress, if you will. The heart's rhythm is not just a pump. So think of that. Like the heart's rhythm, you know, if you see an EKG, you know, it's not just a pump, it's like a Morris code that's transferring signals up to your head and to your entire nervous system that tells it like what state you're in, right? And so this is like super primal stuff we're talking about here. We can talk about, you know, that um fight, flee, or freeze, you know, the the you know, panic system. When you go into the sympathetic nervous system, we call it, you know, you get out of rest and digest of the sympathetic nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system, and you get into the parasympathetic. Am I saying that right? Yeah. Parasympathetic is the rest and digest. The sympathetic is the fight, flight, or freeze, right? So this is like a code that's being sent to your nervous system, to your brain, like all's well down here, all's well down here when it's in harmony, when it's in coherence, right? When it's got that nice rhythmic um pattern to it. But if it doesn't, it sends like freaked out, right? Like there's a there's a lion chasing me kind of moments, right? It might just be I'm on a Zoom call and somebody just said something upsetting to me. Whatever it is, modern day, you know, traumas or you know, triggers, right? So what is the heart telling the brain? You know, what is coherence and incoherence? It's communicating the this Morris code, is communicating your state of coherence or incoherence, right? Like, am I is all well down here? Or should we be like in panic mode? Should we be in stressing, if you will, modern day word? So incoherence, incoherence is like this jagged alarm. When you're stressed, you're anxious, you're frustrated, your heart rhythm looks choppy, irregular, it's jagged. So the signal being sent to the vagus nerve is literally like teaser, like run, you know, like something's not right here, right? So it floods your brain with a threat signal, it shuts down your personal core, you know, your prefrontal cortex, the place where all of your like logic and your access to wisdom, and I would say the captain of your ship goes into like hijack mode, right? So thinking is the rational part of your brain, you know, you go into anxious mode, your body gets inflamed, inflammation signals get sent to your body, um digestion gets shut down, all sorts of you know things. Coherence, on the other hand, is like a nice smooth sine wave. Just thinking of like, I was gonna say like waves in the ocean, but they don't really look very often as sign light. Like just think of like a nice smooth loop up and down, not loop, but like up and down, up and down. So that's what a sine wave looks like. Just rhythmic, same peak, same trough, just like nice and steady. Um, this is the signal to your brain like all's well, internal safety, all systems check, you know, whatever you want to do. And um, I would call it a state of like peace and harmony, all is well. This is a state your nervous system goes into and during repair and regeneration. You have access to creativity and higher consciousness, I would say. So that's where you want to be, right? Doesn't that sound great? And a lot of us walk around not knowing, you know, Samantha and I talk about emotional intelligence, and really it comes down to nervous system regulation, right? Because that's ultimately what is causing all the signals to the brain and the body via you know our thoughts and also by our nervous system. So something I wanted to share with you that I thought was just freaking amazing when I looked into this. So there's a guy by the name, so a lot of this comes from Heart Brain Coherence, which is from an organization called Heart Math Institute, which you can definitely look them up, doing amazing work. Um, they were nominated for the Nobel Prize. Um, Greg Braden and Joe Dispenser are the people that I follow the most that talk about this and share about this the most. So if you want to do deeper dive research, please go check them out. Um, so Bray Greg Braden talks about the 0.1 hertz alignment. So he says that, you know, I would say like this is mind-blowing. Like scientists found that the optimal frequency for heart-brain synchronization, like that, you know, the sine wave that we're talking about, this like harmonic sweet spot, you know, like a fine-tuned piano, when the heart rhythm oscillates at around 0.1 hertz. And I was like, what is that? And it's like I say a 10-second cycle. Well, that's the frequency has been found to be the best fundamental magnetic resonance for you. And guess what? It's also the Earth's frequency. Like, hello. Hello, like you're in tune with the earth, like this big old planet that we're all sitting on, standing on. So when you achieve coherence, you're not just aligning your heart and your brain, you're aligning your body with the fundamental harmony of the planet. I mean, come on, talk about tuned in, tapped in, and turned on. I love that. I was like, that's magic right there. There's something about that. Like, there's something when those little numbers all line up, like you're the earth is 0.1 and you're 0.1. Okay, come on, right? Like we're made of the earth. So we're just little stardusts. So let's talk about the hormones, right? And like some of these benefits. So you don't need to practice for weeks to see changes. That was the good thing about this, but like it feels so damn good. Uh hello, why not? Right? Why would you stop taking your vitamins if like vitamins were free and this is free? So research shows profound chemical shift. Um, it happens in just three minutes. So it's really cool. Okay. So you can get sustained coherence and finding your way back. Like, once you find this frequency, once you find how good it feels, you're like, why don't I do this all day? And I and I kick myself sometimes, but I know that it's possible because I practice this every day. And I know when I'm out of resonance, like I know I'm like, oh, I got my frequency up, you know, and I don't mean up like in a good way, like high frequency, like high vibration. I mean like out of whack, you know, like that jagged, you know, like, you know, resistance, let's call it, right? So a couple things I want you to know. So cortisol, right? So um, you'll see a significant decrease in the stress hormone cortisol. This immediately cuts the wear and tear stress um is placing on your body. So let's talk about cortisol, right? So you will see a significant decrease in stress hormone cortisol. Hello, love that one. I love that one. Cortisol, not not good, not good. You don't want any more of that. So this immediately cuts, you know, having lower cortisol cuts the wear and tear and stress is placing on your body. So it's usually like 23% less cortisol produced in the body when you practice this. I'm like, hello, right? Like I can do that. Um, there's something called DHEA, which is a long word, don't want to say it, but this is often called the master hormone of vitality. Hello! It's a precursor to all your vital hormones. It's directly linked to anti-aging, immune strength, and metabolic function. Hello. Okay, like give me some more of that. Where do I? I mean, I actually have bottles of that. Like, you know, like, but practicing this, like we our body is a chemical fractory. It produces this if we just give it the right coherence, the right alignment to do it. So longevity and immunity. So coherence acts as a biological signal to the body to activate longevity enzymes. And it dramatically strengthens your immune system function. And Greg Braden and Joe Dispenser could tell you all the fancy words and the science words about it, but just know you'll feel better, you'll have a stronger immune system, which means ward off all that yucky bugs and stuff. Your body is entering a state of system-wide regeneration. Like, man, you know, it's like a reboot, like like a like an instant wellness ticket. Like, give me a ticket to that, right? So if you find yourself in the ADHD loop or you're confused or stuck, or just, you know, you you you resonate with some of that resonance, uh, that resistance I was talking about, and you want some clarity, like you want a like a dose of like, I don't want to, you know, my mind is so confused and I get in stress and then I make poor decisions or I say the wrong thing or I don't know what to do, or I'm stuck because I'm not sure, right? Because we've just got all this buildup of this inner resistance. So let's let that go. So beyond the biochemistry, coherence has a massive impact on your decision making. Wow, I just think about that. Like the difference it would make to be aligned with your sorrow, your soul, your heart, mind and heart in alignment and then choosing, right? And then speaking, then deciding, then moving ahead, then making that big decision. When you shift out of that incoherent stress state, like allow yourself to get back into alignment, right? You're quieting that emotional static that doesn't, you know, translate well. It doesn't turn out well. I don't know about you, it doesn't turn out well for me, but I make decisions from that point of like, ah, right. So it creates more of a clear channel for your reliable, non-judgmental, your intuition, and just your clarity, your inner clarity, your soul's true north, right? It's what allows you to make decisions from your wisest self, not your stressed out self. Let's do that, right? So let's talk about this anti-stress tool. So it's not just a feel-good meditation. This isn't just about feeling good, although you will feel good. I think you will. It is a rapid response anti-stress tool. Like, boom, we should box this stuff up and put it on some shelves. In fact, maybe I think I'm gonna turn this into a downloadable because everybody needs this, everybody needs to be doing this. So you have the power to shift your biochemistry and your emotional state regardless of the chaos in your life or what's going on. You do have that power. You may not feel like it or be able to access it in the moment, but I promise you you can the more you practice it. So this is a skill of self-mastery, right? So, what I'm gonna teach you and what I'm gonna have you go through is this something you can do with yourself. You can do this each morning. Um, there's lots out there, and I think I'm gonna be creating one of these specifically just for this, but I want to share it on our podcast because I want to get this out there, right? So don't wait until you're already in crisis. Use this alignment for optimization, right? Like all those yummy benefits as health benefits, anti-aging, immune defense, right? So before decision making, use it before you're signing a lease or taking a job or making an important phone call. Crucial moments before a difficult conversation, a negotiation, public speaking, all sorts of things, right? Where could you use this? And high performance, right? Like get into hard coherence before you go out and crush it. So enter a state of flow because we're all like that when we're working out and pumping our bodies, right? All right, so let's just go over what these three steps are and then I'll walk you through it, or I'll take you through it. So the practice is simple, but the results are profound. So, you know, just the precursor, like, get ready. It's pretty cool. And it seems so simple, but like you'll be like, oh, I get it. It's only three steps, and we're gonna do it together in a moment. So if you give me three minutes of undivided focus, um, when we go through it, you'll walk away with an immediate, tangible change in your system. Like you will have a reboot. Find a comfortable seat. I encourage you if you're driving or if you're listening to this, you may need to come back to it. And I highly encourage you to listen again, listen as many as you'd like. But find a comfortable seat. And when you do, uh, I'll get I'll tell you the three steps and then we'll go do it. So you'll take a deep breath and then we'll get started. So, first step, I'm gonna have you put your hand on your heart. You're gonna shift your focus to your heart and your chest. So you're gonna get out of your mind and down into your heart by putting your hand on your heart. You signal to your your focus, your consciousness goes where your attention is focused and on your hand. Once you put your hand on your body, your body's like, what's that? And then you'll breathe through your heart. Step two, so first step, out of your head into your heart. Put your hand on your heart. Step two, breathe in with control. Maybe for a count of three or four seconds, whatever's comfortable for you, and then a longer exhale. Again, whatever's comfortable for you. So if you're three, then make it six or five or something like that. Just so long as the inhale is shorter than the exhale. And I would like to add, do it with a sigh, like like enjoy it. Like, ah, I have found that that signals to my biggest nerve. My biggest nerve goes, I got you. I know we're good, everything's fine. No tigers, no bears in the in the woods. So step three, imagine, recall, or picture in your mind a moment that you could feel really grateful for. And I'll ask you, like, who were you with? Where were you? What did you see? What did you hear? What do you remember? What did you feel? What did you notice? Right? So that's the three steps. First step, get out of the head, get into your heart. Step two is do that focused breathing, do a couple sighs if you'd like, and then we begin to imagine, right? And so with that rhythmic breathing in the background, then we go into step three and we imagine and we feel, really like take yourself there. So, like the difference is I like to think of it as, you know, so if I said, Oh, like look at that um, that roller coaster over there, like, look at those people like going off the top of that roller coaster, they're going up, up, up, up, up, and then they're going down. And like from looking at them, you will have one experience of being like, wow, that looks kind of scary. Oh, they look like they're having fun, actually. But if I said, now you're in the roller coaster, and I said, Okay, put yourself in that front seat, and you're like, Oh my god, we're going up to the top, and then put yourself as you go over it, like you see everything that you see, you feel everything that you feel, like you're replaying that movie and you're the actual character in it. Okay, so I was giving this coaching to one of my um come a live program coaches, and she's like, Yeah, I remember this moment I was grateful for when we're sitting at dinner and stuff. I go, Okay, well, what restaurant were you in? Okay, got it. All right, where were you and where who was sitting next to you, right? Oh, my daughter was over here, and this was over here, and I said, Was there food on the table or not yet? Uh no, you know, and then I was like, Okay, who was across from you? What do you what else do you remember, right? And just really she could just like get back into that moment, right? So that's how it works. All right, so let's do this instead of just talking about doing this. So if you're driving or not somewhere, you can close your eyes, then do this. Or if you'd like, you can pause and save this episode and come back to it. So for now, we'll move ahead as if you're ready to begin. So start by making your making sure you're in a comfortable position, releasing or letting go whatever thoughts you were thinking or you were doing, or anything that you need to do. Trust that you can come back to it in a few moments. And for now, just allow yourself this focus time with you, giving yourself a sacred gift, feeling comfortable where you are, begin to tell your body and your muscles, all your muscles, from your head down to your toe, and it's okay to let go. Let go of any tension anywhere in your body that you're holding on to. Just be at ease all over. Gently place your hand over your heart in whatever feels comfortable for you. And this is you connecting with your heart, tapping in and signaling to yourself that you're going inward, that you're tuning in to your heart and coming out of your head. Just notice when you're down in your heart, keeping your awareness in your chest, down in your heart, and on your next inhale, imagine your breath is flowing in and out of your center of your chest, through your heart area. Let your mind settle its attention down there on the connection between your hand and your heart, and your breath and your heart. Now we'll begin to signal your safe to your nervous system with a slow, smooth cycle of breathing. Breathe in for a count of three to five, whatever's comfortable for you. And breathe out gently for a count of six or eight. In for a count of four, out for a count of six. Your exhale longer than your inhale. Sending that clear message to your vagus nerve. You're safe. All is well. Keep this rhythm going. Smooth, like a gentle wave. And if you'd like, exhale, take a sigh. Really enjoy it. Feeling so good now, so centered. While keeping that breath rhythm, gently activate a positive emotion. Gratitude, appreciation. Think of one thing, a moment you're truly grateful for. A special moment with someone important to you. Perhaps a beautiful sunset. A moment alone where you felt awe, wonder, beauty. Step into your body in that moment. Feel what you felt. Hear what you heard. Be there now. Feeling deeply gratitude for this moment. Sustain that feeling in your heart space as you continue the slow rhythmic breathing. Feeling appreciation. Love, gratitude. This special moment in your life. This beautiful memory, this time that you had. The gratitude is overwhelming. Double the feeling inside your body now. Just really bringing it up. What do you need to brighten the scene or listen more closely or really pay attention to to really feel that gratitude in your body? That's it. Just deepen that feeling now. Just feeling overwhelming gratitude. And if you'd like to think of a second moment that you feel deeply grateful for, I encourage you to find a second moment of deep gratitude. Where were you? Take yourself back there. Who were you with? What did you see? What did you feel? What did you hear? What did you notice? Just enjoying that moment. Either alone or with someone. Feeling that gratitude in your body. Deep, deep gratitude for this moment. And I'd like you to just notice how you feel in your body right now. Paying extra attention to the entire body, but most importantly, your inner core, your your heart center. Just noticing how rhythmic it feels in there, how aligned it feels. Like all is well. No worries. All is well. And take one final deep breath in, closing the doorway on the imagination. And when you're ready, take a nice exhale. And on the inhale, open your eyes. Maybe we'll get your fingers, make sure you're fully back in your body. Open your eyes. And just notice what you notice in your body right now, like how it feels different than when we started. And just noticing that kind of inner sanctuary, that inner peace that you have now. Or maybe just, you know, if you were at a level 10, now you're at a six, or if you were at a four, you're at a two. You're just like noticing where you are on a scale of peace, ease, gentleness, compassion, gratitude. That is a state that you want to be making decisions from. That is a state where anything is possible, right? Creativity, beauty, magic. So in just three minutes, you shifted your physiology. You just gave yourself the gift. You decreased your stress, activated your innate immunity system, vitality, regeneration. And the heart is key to living tuned in, tapped in, turned on. So three takeaways. All right. So your heart's the boss, all right? In case you haven't figured that out, like it sends the dominant signal. So manage those emotions, manage that nervous system, right? Not just your thoughts. Three minutes is an easy window. You can fit that in in a lot of places these days. You don't need the 30-minute meditation or an hour or whatever it is. Use this practice on demand, right? Every high-stakes moment, every like tension, if you're out of whack and you've got to, you know, move into this next phase of something in your day. Or for me, it's every morning, non-negotiable. Bring this into your daily life. And appreciation is the fuel, right? Gratitude. Your most powerful tool isn't your logic, isn't your brain. Not the best decisions get made up there. If that thing's out of coherent, if it's all jacked up, it's all stressed out, then L, you know. You can tell when you're like all scatterbrained and stuck and no momentum, like your answers are going to come from a different place. Your better brain, your bigger brain, your hard brain, I would say. So practice this for three minutes every morning this week, and you'll find clarity where there was confusion, calm where you had chaos. And thank you for joining me. And I want to say the one thing as we always like to remind our humans as we, you know, we have one thing from this whole session is you can reset your nervous system. Like you have that power. Like I just walked you through, like this works. This is how you can take that self-dominion, right? Ownership of your body, your emotional state, and bring yourself into the state anytime you'd like. Do it, use it often. Use it. It's free, right? It's a gift. Now the question is, will you? I hope you will. And as we close out today, as we do every episode, I wish our beautiful Samantha the best. And I say, how your life feels is more important than how it looks. And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome. Thanks for joining me today.
