Coherence

From an interesting article:

In music, a chord is composed of notes of different frequencies, yet it resonates as a harmonious order of sound waves. In physiology, coherence is similarly used to describe the degree of coupling and harmonious interaction between two or more of the body's oscillatory systems such as respiration and heart rhythms. There are modes where they are operating at different frequencies, and modes when they become entrained and oscillate at the same frequency. This is also true for brain states in which the brainwaves can be momentarily in phase at different locations across the brain. The term cross-coherence is used to specify this type aspect of coherence.

Another example, from a physiological systems perspective, is that people's thoughts, emotions and attitudes can either be aligned and coherent or incoherent. When individuals think one way, feel another, and behave inconsistently, they are in an inefficient and ineffective state that's non-coherence. A situation adults commonly face illustrates another kind of incoherence.

For example, if a child has hit another child and must be taught to be kind to others and that hitting is not acceptable, consider the internal state of an adult in the following two scenarios:
1. The adult who punishes the child with a spanking for hitting another child.
2. The adult who takes time to teach and encourage the child to apologize and render an act of service or kindness to the other child. In this instance, the thoughts, feelings and actions of the adult are in coherent alignment with the message being taught. Then the child is more likely to have a coherent understanding of the lesson being taught.

Another aspect of coherence relates to the dynamics of the flow of action produced by a single system (McCraty & Tomasino, 2006). This is coherence as a uniform pattern of cyclical behavior. Because this pattern of action is generated by a single system, the term auto-coherence is used to denote this type of coherence. This concept is commonly used in physics to describe the generation of an ordered distribution of energy in a waveform. An example is a sine wave, which is a perfectly coherent wave. The more stable the frequency, amplitude, and shape of the waveform, the higher the degree of coherence.

In physiological systems, this type of coherence describes the degree of order and stability in the rhythmic activity generated by a single oscillatory such as the hearts rhythmic activity. When coherence is increased in a single system that is coupled to other systems, it can pull the other systems into coherence or entrainment, resulting in increased cross-coherence in the activity of the other systems, even across different time scales of activity.

The six psychophysiological modes to construct a typology—a conceptual “map”—showing the expected relationship between different categories of subjective emotional experience and the different patterns of physiological activity associated with them (see Figure 4). This general theoretical scheme applies to normal, healthy individuals experiencing emotions and feelings of relatively short duration (minutes to hours).

It is now generally accepted that the afferent neurological signals the heart sends to the brain have a regulatory influence on many of the ANS signals that flow from the brain to the heart, to the blood vessels, and to other glands and organs. However, it is less commonly appreciated that these same cardiovascular afferent signals involved in physiological regulation also cascade up into the higher centers of the brain and influence their activity and function. Of particular significance is the influence of the heart’s input on the activity of the cortex—that part of the brain that governs thinking and reasoning capacities. Depending on the nature of the heart’s input, it can either inhibit or facilitate working memory and attention, cortical processes, cognitive functions, and performance (Hansen, Johnsen, & Thayer, 2003; Lacey & Lacey, 1974; Rau, Pauli, Brody, Elbert, & Birbaumer, 1993; Sandman, Walker, & Berka, 1982; van der Molen, Somsen, & Orlebeke, 1985).

…there are organism states in which the regulation of life processes becomes efficient, or even optimal, free-flowing and easy. This is a well established physiological fact. It is not a hypothesis. The feelings that usually accompany such physiologically conducive states are deemed “positive,” characterized not just by absence of pain but by varieties of pleasure. There also are organism states in which life processes struggle for balance and can even be chaotically out of control. The feelings that usually accompany such states are deemed “negative,” characterized not just by absence of pleasure but by varieties of pain.

…The fact that we, sentient and sophisticated creatures, call certain feelings positive and other feelings negative is directly related to the fluidity or strain of the life process. Antonio Damasio