Student Mental Health
Establishing a New Baseline for Sustained Behavioral Change
HeartMath’s evidence-based self-regulation classroom programs and HRV coherence biofeedback tools—emWave® and Inner Balance™—help students manage stress, calm emotions, and build confidence while improving focus and resilience. Targeted strategies fit within MTSS frameworks and have helped thousands of children ease anxiety, anger, and other emotional symptoms.
EMPOWERING OUR YOUTH
How Heart Coherence Is Transforming Kids’ Mental & Emotional Wellbeing
Heart coherence training activates the body’s natural ability to restore emotional balance and improve cognitive performance. When students practice HeartMath’s self-regulation techniques supported by HRV coherence biofeedback technology, they create measurable physiological shifts that improve attention, memory, problem-solving, and impulse control. Research demonstrates how self-regulation training equips youth with tools to navigate stress and thrive. A systematic review of 49 studies found these interventions improve not only self-regulation but also academic achievement, social skills, mental health, and behavioral outcomes.
Building Resilience Through Heart Coherence
HeartMath’s techniques have shown significant promise in helping children with ADHD regulate emotions, focus, and reduce stress. This program combines easy-to-learn practices with biofeedback tools, offering a unique approach to enhancing emotional and cognitive balance.
Benefits of HeartMath Training for ADHD:
- Emotional Regulation: Helps children manage stress and reduce impulsivity.
- Improved Focus: Enhances attention span and decision-making abilities.
- Empowered Self-Control: Provides tools for children to recognize and shift their emotional states.
How It Works
- Learn Heart Coherence: Through guided techniques, children build awareness of their emotional states.
- Real-Time Feedback: Biofeedback devices show heart rhythm patterns, making progress tangible.
- Sustained Practice: Daily exercises encourage lasting improvements in behavior and emotional health.
Additional Behavioral Health and Other Applications
Autism
Stress is a natural part of life, but well-adjusted individuals are able to break stress patterns, which can lead to anxiety, worry, anger or depression. Many children on the spectrum do not have the skills to break these patterns. In dozens of interventions in schools, youth agencies, clinics and homes, HeartMath applications have helped autistic children reduce anxiety and emotional outbursts and agitation related to physical and social discomfort. The emWave technology in particular has been especially helpful because of the routines it establishes and its ease of use.
Anxiety
Stress is a natural part of life, but well-adjusted individuals are able to break stress patterns, which can lead to anxiety, worry, anger or depression. Many children on the spectrum do not have the skills to break these patterns. In dozens of interventions in schools, youth agencies, clinics and homes, HeartMath applications have helped autistic children reduce anxiety and emotional outbursts and agitation related to physical and social discomfort. The emWave technology in particular has been especially helpful because of the routines it establishes and its ease of use.
Addictions
An increasing number of professionals are using HeartMath self-regulation techniques and technologies in conjunction with addiction treatments for adolescents with substance-abuse issues. Because physiological stress plays an enormous role in addictive behavior and drug relapses, heart rate variability technology has shown promise as a viable method of helping to reduce stress levels among youth ages 13-18.
Bullying
At a number of schools around the United States, students identified with bullying type behavior have received interventions that utilize HeartMath tools. These students met several times a week in small groups or one-on-one sessions and learned how to recognize their emotional states and choose less violent responses to situations that normally provoked anger and bullying behavior.
Depression
Children often can feel overwhelming pressure to succeed in school, social groups or at home, and this can lead to noticeable changes in their feelings. They may show signs of being worried, hopeless, lonely, rejected, guilty or angry. Poor self-esteem, withdrawal and body aches are common signs. HeartMath collaborates with many youth agencies, clinics and educational organizations to help children improve their mental health through self-regulation techniques and technologies.
Severely Emotionally Disturbed (SED)
Anger can be a normal reaction in a young person who seems to have lost control of his or her life. When anger management is ineffective a child experiencing chronic stress can be driven into a downward spiral. Counselors, educators, clinicians and other professionals are utilizing HeartMath strategies and technologies to teach children the early warning signs of anger and how to better self-regulate their behavior.
PTSD/Trauma
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can develop following a traumatic event that threatens a child’s safety or makes him feel helpless. Disasters, abuse or family neglect can lead to forms of shock, fear and emotional paralysis. HeartMath works actively with many psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health experts to help troubled children cope with the PTSD symptoms.
HeartMath® Institute Student Mental Health Initiative
Map of participating schools and organizations. Click on a heart to learn more about the organization.
Made Possible by the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation
HEARTMATH INTERVENTIONS
Establishing a New Baseline for Sustained Behavioral Change
The HeartMath® Interventions Program is uniquely designed for licensed counselors, psychologists, social workers, educational therapists, doctors and other health-care professionals who want to add HeartMath tools and technologies into their therapeutic work with children and adults. The self-regulation techniques, protocols and technologies taught in the program guide individuals in establishing a new physiological baseline that results in sustainable perceptual, attitudinal and behavioral changes.