During our research into heart-to-heart synchronisation my wife Claire and I came across an interesting piece of research that has implications for an understanding social connection. The research was carried out by Dr Rollin McCraty, the chief scientist of the HeartMath Institute with a number of scientists from other academic institutions and was published recently in Nature’s Scientific Reports. It is called Global study of long term heart rhythm synchronization in groups.
This is the first time that heart rate variability patterns in groups have been studied over a long period of time – in this case 15 days. The data was recorded simultaneously in different countries including England, Saudia Arabia, New Zealand, California and Lithuania and was filtered so that variability that occurred over several hours was excluded, leaving the daily changes. Interestingly highly statistically significant synchronisation was observed in Saudia Arabia and New Zealand but not in the other countries. The data for these two countries also showed distinct correlation of the group and pairs within the group at certain times of the week, most notably the weekend. Significantly, the experimenters were not always in the same physical location.
The obvious thing to ask is why there should be this difference between countries? Having excluded factors such as changes in the earth’s magnetic field (something that the HeartMath Institute has shown before to affect heart rate variability - HRV) the authors speculate that the synchronisation could be related to the strong social bond that experimenters had in Saudia Arabia and New Zealand, in contrast to the other countries. It seems that these bonds meant that the experimenters naturally synchronised, perhaps because they did have cultural similarities in their lifestyles or some other communication factor that is enhanced by social familiarity and bonding.
Whatever is causing the synchronisation, the results point to the invisible physiological ties that connect us and the importance of maintaining good bonding in our relationships so we can benefit from what science is increasingly showing us makes for a happier and healthier life.
Peter Granger - Heartbond
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