Reduced healthcare costs and improved employee performance are just two of the benefits reported by organizations who have offered the recently-launched Revitalize You!TM stress management training program from HeartMath® to their employees. The e-learning program has proven to reduce healthcare costs in terms of lower health claims, and reduced absenteeism at a number of organizations. Employees who completed the program have reported increases in energy, as well as decreases in anger, depression and anxiety. They also found it easier to sleep at night, enabling them to enjoy life more and perform at their best.
“Stress has been well documented to increase both the risk of disease and to have a negative impact on work performance, productivity and employee engagement,” said Bruce Cryer, president and chief executive officer of HeartMath. “High levels of emotional distress have been found to be among the most costly health problems in numerous studies. Revitalize You! provides companies with a proven, cost-effective method to bring these costs down while also driving productivity improvements.”
Sample Client Data Shows Benefits in One Year
Essential Hypertension Costs:
1. 22% decrease in cost of HeartMath cohort
2. 47% increase in cost for non-HeartMath cohort
Pharmacy Costs:
1. 7.9% increase in cost of HeartMath cohort
2. 13.3% increase in cost for non-HeartMath cohort
First Year ROI = 1.95: 1, projected second year ROI = 3.9: 1
1. Annual Savings per HeartMath participant = $585
The HeartMath program is centered on the connection between the heart and brain. Research has shown that the heart is a primary generator of rhythms in the body and powerfully influences brain processes that control the nervous system, cognitive function and emotion. For nearly two decades HeartMath research has demonstrated the critical link between emotions, heart function and cognitive performance. This insight into human and organizational dynamics of stress successfully moves stress management education beyond any strategy companies may have tried before.
HeartMath research suggests that through repeated experiences of stress, the brain learns to recognize patterns of psychophysiological activity associated with “stress” as familiar, and therefore “comfortable.” To the extent these patterns become part of our baseline reference, the body automatically strives to maintain the habitual patterns. Without effective intervention, stress can then become self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing.
Through extensive clinical and organizational research, HeartMath has pinpointed “coherence” as an optimal performance state that can help the body break the pattern. Increasing one’s personal level of coherence – a naturally occurring and highly efficient psychophysiological state that can be created by aligning the heart-brain connection – has proven to be beneficial for both employees overall wellbeing as well as for organizations that want to reduce healthcare costs. HeartMath research explains that coherence has a cumulative effect. Meaning the more time an employee can spend in this optimal state, the more it starts to become a new baseline for personal of wellness. People start to operate more often from a place of coherence, rather than it being a place one needs to get to.
“Our research shows that when the human body is coherent we experience less stress,” said Catherine Calarco, vice president of sales and marketing for HeartMath. “We spend less energy maintaining health, and we waste less energy on inefficient reactions and energy draining thought processes. With increased levels of coherence employees thrive mentally, emotionally and physically.”
The self-paced Revitalize You! e-learning program runs a total of five one-hour sessions, includes weekly quizzes, online support, email coaching, full technical support and, if desired, clients can request biometric and psychometric measures to validate the program effectiveness. The program helps employees identify stress triggers, learn how to deploy highly focused, specialized techniques designed to release emotional stress and change their response to stress.
Employees in the Revitalize You! program practice the techniques while using the HeartMath emWave2®, a hand-held device that measures a person’s heart rhythm and emotional state. The emWave2 includes a computer interface that works with PCs or Macs and allows the employee to track and save sessions.
The emWave technology provides objective monitoring of one’s emotional state, adding a valuable component to the program for employees who truly want to gain control of stress. As employees practice with the emWave2 they quickly start to achieve a state of coherence more often and for longer periods of time, which equates to less stress, increased cognitive performance, and resilience. HeartMath experts say that as participants continue their practice it is entirely realistic that they can learn to recreate coherence with or without the device.
The HeartMath program is distinguished from other stress management interventions because of HeartMath’s extensive research and the strategies that enable individuals to intercede the moment stress is experienced – rather than try to recuperate “after the fact.”
About HeartMath LLC:
HeartMath is an innovative performance company providing a range of unique scientifically validated services, products and technology to improve health and well-being, while dramatically reducing stress and boosting productivity. Their emWave technology has won numerous awards including the 2009 Last Gadget Standing People’s Choice Award at the International Consumer Electronics Show. HeartMath was a finalist for the 2009 ABBY Award: Innovative Approach to the Delivery of Healthcare. HeartMath research studies have demonstrated the critical link between emotions, heart function and cognitive performance and the clinical outcomes of the HeartMath approach have been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals such as American Journal of Cardiology, Stress Medicine, Preventive Cardiology, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and Integrative Physiological and Behavioral Science. Organizational clients include Stanford Business School, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kaiser Permanente, Duke Medical Center, NASA, the Veterans Administration, as well as thousands of health professionals around the world. Learn more at www.heartmath.com and on their Facebook page at facebook.com/#!/RevitalizingYourWorkforce.
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This press release was distributed through PR Web by Human Resources Marketer (HR Marketer: www.HRmarketer.com) on behalf of the company listed above.