Why Open Your Heart?
To open your heart has many advantages, but for clarity, let’s start with what it means. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a person with an open heart is compassionate, caring, and honest.
This definition slightly differs from Merriam-definition Webster’s of open-heartedness, which is given as follows:
1: honestly straightforward: forthright.
2: able to respond to emotional appeal
In a piece for Psychology Today, Rick Hanson, Ph.D., expands on the definition: “How does it feel to have your heart open? Physically, across your entire body, and in your chest (like comfort and warmth). Empathy, compassion, and emotional stability are just a few examples of when you open your heart. Mentally, such as maintaining perspective and wishing other people well (Hanson).
These numerous definitions cover a wide range of what we consider an open heart to include and show that it has many different aspects, including conduct and disposition, as well as felt experiences in the physical, emotional, and mental realms.
Recognizing its breadth and complexity is essential because it impacts interpersonal dynamics and every aspect of lived experience. Additionally, each of these effects has shown to be overwhelmingly beneficial, which we’ll discuss in more detail below.
Relationships Benefit When You Open Your Heart
Most individuals value qualities such as kindness, love, and honesty in partners. These characteristics of an open heart are unmistakable. Therefore you will undoubtedly benefit from them in your interactions with other people, particularly since they will encourage others to trust you correctly.
According to Roderick M. Kramer’s description of the fundamental nature of trust in a Harvard Business Review article, “Thanks to our huge brains, humans are born physically prematurely and heavily dependent on caregivers. We come into the world “hardwired” to form social ties because of this desire… To put it simply, trust is primarily about engaging people because we are naturally social beings. This is why trust is so important. That has benefited us in the fight for survival (Kramer).
He continues by highlighting the risks of blindly and hastily putting your trust in others. This is also illuminating because it shows how important trust is and how being someone who can be trusted is a genuinely priceless gift in our unstable environment. People respect you more as a friend, partner, family member, and human being when you are worthy of their trust and have an open heart.
An Open Heart Enhances Physical Performance
A healthy body is supported by an open heart, which feels physiologically warming and calming. We perform at a higher level, sleep better, and digest food better. Our autonomic (automatic) nervous system functions more efficiently when we experience feelings of safety and the world being in order.
In research for Psychophysiology, Knight et al. discovered that middle-aged adults showed a less cognitive decline when their parasympathetic nervous system (feed/breed) activity was higher and their sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight) activity was lower (Knight et al.).
In addition to safeguarding the brain, raising parasympathetic tone is advantageous for other organ systems. If you open your heart, encourage this, making it an excellent decision for those seeking a long lifespan and good health.
Emotional IQ Rises with an Open Heart
Empathy, compassion, and balance are all experienced as signs of having an open heart in the emotional realm. This corresponds to a healthy, centered, and impressively self-controlled person. Empathy enables us to envision and care about other people’s life experiences.
This awareness is strengthened by compassion, which drives us to act in the interests of others around us. Maintaining balance is adapting to react when necessary rather than having difficulties destroying an equilibrium.
The actions above are essential elements of emotional intelligence (EI), which is at least as significant as the frequently discussed intelligence quotient. EI is also known as emotional quotient or EQ (IQ).
EI is “the junction at which cognition and emotion meet; it improves our capacity for resilience, motivation, empathy, reasoning, stress management, communication, and our ability to read and navigate various social situations and conflicts,” according to an article for Positive Psychology. EI is necessary and, if developed, gives one the chance to have a happier and more fulfilling life (Houston).
Open Your Heart Broadens Your View
In the mental sphere, keeping things in perspective and wishing others well are made more accessible by having an open heart. These two things work together to reduce or even end the interpersonal conflict.
In our wild world, the capacity to keep perspective in the face of unforeseen, unwelcome, and unpleasant occurrences can seem like a superpower. This talent develops the additional skill of wishing others well despite being harmed by them.
These successes are made possible when you open your heart since it increases your level of inclusivity. According to Psychology Today, “people feel more kinship with others and pull those typically viewed as outsiders into their circle of care as identification grows beyond particular qualities and groupings to broad, all-inclusive ideas. They are consequently less inclined to denigrate other groups, show bias, and engage in discrimination. Additionally, they are more likely to worry about humanity (Leary and Marano).
Unquestionably, expanding our sphere of influence will positively impact people and the globe beyond the arbitrary borders of race, gender, and other categories. To open your hearts is a simple action that every one of us may perform to get that desired result. This seemingly insignificant step will broaden our horizons and produce immeasurable positive effects.
References:
- Hanson, Rick. “What Is an Open Heart?” Psychology Today, 21 December 2015, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-wise-brain/201512/what-is-open-heart.
- Kramer, Roderick M. “Rethinking Trust.” Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2009/06/rethinking-trust.
- Knight, Erik L et al. “Parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems interactively predict change in cognitive functioning in midlife adults.” Psychophysiology vol. 57,10 (2020): e13622. doi:10.1111/psyp.13622 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7722158/
- Houston, Elaine. “The Importance of Emotional Intelligence (Including EI Quotes).” PositivePsychology.com, 24 March 2022, https://positivepsychology.com/importance-of-emotional-intelligence/
- Leary, Mark, and Estroff Marano. “Putting Yourself in Perspective.” Psychology Today, 13 February 2020, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/202002/putting-yourself-in-perspective
