I am so excited to be blogging from the HeartMath Best Practices Conference: Creating Coherent Caring Environments.

I have to admit, I’m a little travel weary. I actually flew from New York City this morning on a 6 a.m. flight, but the beautiful location here at the Seascape Beach Resort in Santa Cruz, California is reviving me. And, I got in on the last two presentations for the morning.

The conference is off to a great start. HeartMath CEO Bruce Cryer welcomed us to this first-ever best practices conference. Presenters from Fairfield Medical Center of Lancaster, Ohio, and Scottsdale Healthcare in Scottsdale, Arizona followed Bruce and they were great.

I first met presenter Cynthia Pearsall, chief nursing office from Fairfield Medical Center, when my team and I went through our first training session several years ago. It was really fun to see her again today and hear about their journey at Fairfield with HeartMath. Their presentation was all about integrating HeartMath into a hospital culture and it was inspirational to hear about all the lives that are being touched by HeartMath.

The Fairfield team followed their presentation with a wonderful video featuring seven staffers sharing their personal stories with HeartMath. One woman shared how it helps her and her husband deal with the hectic life of parents of six children. Another employee shared how HeartMath changed her life after a horrible traffic accident that she lived through as a teenager. The accident created lifelong anxiety whenever driving and now through the use of HeartMath, she is no longer paralyzed with fear. Cynthia shared how she uses Heart Lock-ins to solve difficult problems during meetings. Yet another woman told the touching story of how HeartMath transformed a very stressful bath time routine with her son into a loving and special bonding time. HeartMath helped another staff member though a difficult time dealing with several family member's significant illnesses. The video ended with the CEO and executive assistant sharing about the transformed executive suite after HeartMath came into their lives. We will have to talk them into putting their video on YouTube. It was awesome!

Marielena Murphy and Linda Larkey from Scottsdale Healthcare gave a presentation about how research in nursing practice at their institution is helping to expand HeartMath usage among the care team. One of the projects they highlighted focused specifically in the surgical services department. Early indications of the project indicate there is likely a correlation between the practice of HeartMath and the reduction of adverse events. More research is necessary to find correlations with HeartMath and patient satisfaction, turnover, and employee satisfaction.

The second half of their presentation focused on how HeartMath coherence correlates with the meditative movement practice with breast cancer survivors. Watch for a journal article out soon indicating the very positive impact of both HeartMath and Qigong have on patients with persistent fatigue after treatment.

Lunch time and then an afternoon full of more stimulating presentations from the Mayo folks...There’s more to come from Santa Cruz!