How well you manage your attitudes and emotions each day determines to a large extent how much vitality you will experience overall. Most people think fatigue sets in because of all the things they have to do or because they didn’t get enough sleep. They often overlook the energy drain from out-of-control emotions.

Different triggers in life can cause stress to run through your system, creating frayed nerves, fatigue, and overwhelming, out-of-control feelings. Once this occurs, it’s important to recover from the stress fast, otherwise your energy drains away. Taking emotional responsibility to get into heart rhythm coherence helps to rebalance your system. Coherence also helps you develop the intuitive discernment to see how to stop draining energy and renew your vitality. This is especially important when you are trying to lift depression.

When you have plenty of energy and you’re on a roll (feeling like you’re moving in a smooth flow), you carry a certain energetic presence. But then on those days where something triggers anger or blame, you can feel your energy dip. And then there are those days where the fritterings of anxious inner dialogue, pouting, or emotional insecurities allow your energy to leak all day like a dripping faucet. You may not notice or understand the impact that these very private mental and emotional energy expenditures have on your vitality, but they are a constant drain.

Why Sleep Isn’t Enough

Each night you sleep to rest the mind and body from the previous day’s concerns and to recoup the energy spent. Lots of people skimp on sleep due to the pressure of having so many things to do. Many sleep fitfully due to worries and anxieties they can’t shut off. Everyday concerns drain their energy much of the night, and then they drag themselves through the next day wondering why life feels so hard. The greatest cause of low vitality and ongoing fatigue is this emotional and mental unrest. People need sleep just to rest from their negative thoughts and feelings. The irony is that sleep gives them just enough energy so they can do the same thing over again the next day and the next—drain their energy away in anxiety, judging, and blame.

Sleeplessness and insomnia have become acute problems for seventy million people in the United States alone, according to the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research. The health consequences add about $15 billion to the national health care bill and cost industry $50 billion in lost productivity. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that about 56,000 automobile accidents per year are the result of drivers falling asleep at the wheel.

If you are experiencing crippling fatigue—especially if it accompanies other unexplainable symptoms, like memory impairment or muscle pain—it’s important to consult a physician. Clinical illnesses, such as sleep apnea or chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome (CFIDS), may have different causes than the exhaustion that results from the wear and tear of everyday life. But even clinical illnesses are made worse from the drain of unmanaged emotions.

Just as you can drain energy like a sieve by not managing your emotions, so you can accumulate energy quickly through just a little emotional management. You reaccumulate emotional energy each time you use one of the heart coherence tools. You need to fill your tank of emotional energy to lift depression. When you practice the tools, you give your system a chance to build up your emotional accumulators. Your cells accumulate and store emotional energy, just as they store physical energy. That’s how you can feel buoyant or emotionally renewed at times. Heart coherence starts emotional regeneration. It’s like an activator that helps you deal more effectively with whatever is challenging you.

In fact, the deepest form of rest, recuperation, and regeneration is heart rhythm coherence. When you are in a deep sleep, your heart rhythms naturally go into the coherence mode. The smooth, sine-wavelike pattern of heart rhythm coherence is the mode the body naturally slips into during deep, restorative sleep. You will learn the Heart Lock-In technique later in this chapter to help you lock in and sustain heart rhythm coherence for longer periods.

Excerpt from Transforming Depression: The HeartMath Solution to Feeling Overwhelmed, Sad, and Stressed by Doc Childre and Deborah Rozman Ph.D.