The Power of Tender Love by Laura Facciponti
Early scientific studies of Alba Emoting showed that when subjects were in the Tender Love pattern the heart rate dropped below the resting cardiac rate. All other emotion patterns raised the heart rate, and even the neutral breath pattern brought the heart rate back to the resting rate.
Six years ago, as an early practitioner of Alba Emoting, this research knowledge of the pattern’s effects on the heart rate was on the surface of my mind as my father came home from heart surgery. I remember walking into my parents’ kitchen a few days after his release from the hospital. I saw my father sitting at the table with an automatic heart rate monitor strapped to his arm as my mother bustled about the kitchen gathering supplies for his new pill-taking and heart monitoring routine. He sat grimacing over the machine as he pushed the button and the machine whirred into action. The machine beeped the results and he frowned even harder. I asked him what he was trying to do. He said, “I’m trying to bring my heart rate down. The doctor said it should be in a certain range and I am supposed to check it three times a day. It’s too high.”
Example of Tender Love Pattern with Mother and Son
Many years later I remembered this event as I watched my fiancé, George, sit in a surgical recovery room last month, connected to a heart rate monitor. I stood next to his gurney as the surgical nurse instructed him to close his eyes, exhale deeply, and think pleasant thoughts – while she watched his heart rate monitor. I watched George take big breaths, heaving his high chest with each inhale, closing his eyes and frowning with concentration as he gave a long exhale–creating what I knew to be a mixture of sadness and anxiety. I thought to myself, “This can’t be good for him as a recovery method,” and wondered what the nurse’s goal was. So I asked her, “Are you trying to get his heart rate down?” She said, “Yes. We can’t release him until it reaches a safer level.” That was all I needed to hear.
As the nurse bustled about the room, I quietly looked at George and asked, “Want to try a breathing pattern with me that I believe will bring your heart rate down?” George looked at me and nodded with agreement. I quietly instructed him to look at me and just breathe along with me – like me. First starting with deep breathing, so he would move out of his high chest breathing, then we adopted the Tender Love pattern and the smile with tilted head. Slowly the nurse drifted over, curious. She pressed the heart monitor button for a final read, and as George and I shared the Tender Love pattern together we could hear the heart monitor beeping down, down, down! The nurse smiled, “You can go.” As I exited the surgical area with George I made a mental note, “Create a special workshop on Alba Emoting for surgical recovery nurses, or at least a mini workshop on the power of Tender Love.”
Looking at these adorable puppies can easily trigger Tender Love
How can you create Tender Love for yourself? Until you have the opportunity to learn Alba Emoting, the power of Tender Love is something you often feel when you look at that loved one with that soft smile of unconditional loving adoration. One of the purest ways to feel Tender Love, without having instruction on how to duplicate it via Alba Emoting, is the feeling one might have when cuddling with a dog/puppy, cat/kitten, baby, or basking in a favorite place. Although we would like to think that we can find that from our love relationships all the time, people-to-people interactions can be very complex emotionally and do offer Tender Love occasions along with mixed emotions and messages. The pet and place interactions mentioned earlier generally won’t create additional mixed feelings or reactions of stress. Although, it is important to choose the “Tender Love stimulant” that works best for you. For example, for some people holding a baby or a cat can cause all kinds of anxiety, while in others it creates pure Tender Love.
Studies have shown that ederly adults who form good relationships with pets have lower blood pressure
Many studies have shown that when people develop loving relationships with pets, their health improves – particularly their heart rates drop. In an article, Does Pet Ownership Reduce Your Risk of Heart Disease? Aaron Honori Katcher, MD states, “When people speak to people, blood pressure almost always rises. Sometimes the rises are quite large, bringing the subject’s blood pressure into the hypertensive range. In contrast, when people speak to pets, blood pressure remains the same and can even fall below the level recorded when the subject is resting quietly.” The secret ingredient here is Tender Love!
To read more about studies on pets for better health go to: http://www.petsfortheelderly.org/research.html#1
