Page 73 - Your Leader Within Introduction

This means that the heart “knew the future” up to six seconds prior to the stimulus (picture showing up on the screen).
Additionally, the flow of information was from the heart to the to the frontal cortex in the brain that sends messages to the body – all prior to the participant seeing the picture.
When one gets a “gut feel,” the gut is the third notification of the event after heart and brain, but could be prior to the event.
For example, let’s say an emotionally provocative picture of a very bloody auto accident was to come up at random on the screen in six seconds.
A participant’s heart rate would instantly speed up or slow down at the start of the event, a full six seconds before the picture was shown on the screen.
In this example of a painful picture, the heart would slow down basically predicting the coming of an emotionally painful picture.
It is a bit counter intuitive that the heart rate slows down at an emotionally disturbing experience, but that is how our body responds to disturbing events that are not physically threatening.
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