A Free Video Event
Why Your Nervous System Won’t Just “Calm Down” (And What Your Heart Has to Do With It)
HeartMath® practices for regulating your nervous system, easing chronic stress, and helping your body feel safe again with neurologist Jorina Elbers, MD
You know how you would like to respond to a stressful moment. Calm. Grounded. Able to think clearly. But somewhere between knowing that and doing it, something else takes over. Your chest tightens. Your mind races. Or you go quiet and cannot access any of it at all.
Neurologist Jorina Elbers, MD, Medical Director at the HeartMath® Institute, sees this pattern often, and she offers a reframe worth sitting with: this is not a personal failing. It is often a sign that your nervous system adapted to prolonged stress exactly as it was designed to. Once you understand that, the question shifts from “what is wrong with me” to “what is my body trying to tell me,” and a more hopeful path forward starts to appear.
That reframe is the starting point of The Heart’s Hidden Role in Healing Stress & Trauma, a free online event built around one of modern neuroscience’s more surprising findings: your heart may be one of the fastest, most direct paths to calming an overwhelmed nervous system.
Event Details
| Event: | The Heart’s Hidden Role in Healing Stress & Trauma |
| Presenter: | Jorina Elbers, MD, Neurologist & Medical Director, HeartMath® Institute |
| Format: | Free, live online video event, approximately one hour-CLAIM YOUR SPOT |
| When: | Tuesday, September 8, 2026 |
| Replay: | Available through September 23rd, 2026, for anyone registered |
| Cost: | Free |
| Hosted by: | The Shift Network |
Who This Is For
This event is a good fit if you recognize any of the signs of nervous system dysregulation below:
Anxiety that seems to show up without an obvious trigger- Feeling wired but exhausted, or stuck in a low-grade fight-or-flight state
- Unexplained physical symptoms, digestive issues, sleep trouble, or aches tied to chronic stress
- Having done cognitive or talk-based work but still reacting from an old, familiar pattern
- Practitioners, coaches, and healers wanting a clearer framework for nervous system regulation to bring into their own work
What You’ll Learn in This Hour
- Experience Heart-Focused Breathing® live, a simple HeartMath® practice you can use immediately to interrupt a stress response
- Understand the science of heart-brain communication and why the heart may be one of the fastest pathways for calming the nervous system
- See how small moments of heart coherence can shift the way you think, feel, and respond to daily stress
- Explore a practical framework for regulating emotions and accessing what Dr. Elbers calls heart intelligence
- Learn why resilience functions as a skill you can strengthen, not a trait you either have or do not
Featured Practice: Heart-Focused Breathing®
This is the centerpiece technique Dr. Elbers will guide you through live. It pairs slow, heart-centered breathing with recalling a positive feeling to help shift your heart rhythm pattern and send a signal of safety through your nervous system. It is designed to be simple enough to use anywhere, whenever anxiety, overwhelm, or disconnection shows up.
About Jorina Elbers, MD
Dr. Jorina Elbers is a board-certified neurologist and Medical Director at the HeartMath® Institute, where she helps translate the science of heart-brain connection into practical, everyday tools. She previously served as an assistant professor and pediatric neurologist at Stanford University for six years, where she combined clinical care with research into how chronic stress and trauma affect the nervous system. She holds a master’s degree in epidemiology from Stanford and has published more than 25 peer-reviewed papers on nervous system dysregulation.
Dr. Elbers now runs a private integrative neurology practice in Santa Cruz, California, where she works with adults and children experiencing stress-related and medically unexplained symptoms. She is trained in EMDR, Brainspotting, and HeartMath®, and is known for making complex neuroscience feel accessible, grounded, and genuinely useful.
What People Are Saying
After years of anxiety that other approaches could not resolve, one client in Santa Cruz found that a handful of sessions combining Brainspotting with HeartMath work created a noticeable shift, helping her move past barriers that had kept her from fully enjoying her life. — P.B., Santa Cruz, CA
Another describes Dr. Elbers helping her through one of the hardest stretches of her life, with her condition improving in a short period thanks to a caring, individualized approach. — S.H., Santa Cruz, CA
A third client says the Brainspotting work helped her process the experiences fueling years of anxiety, leaving her feeling like herself again and waking up with more confidence and peace. — K.D., Santa Cruz, CA
This free event is also your first look at Dr. Elbers’ upcoming 7-week live video course, where she goes beyond understanding why your nervous system reacts the way it does and into building lasting change through a complete HeartMath® framework for emotional regulation, heart intelligence, and resilience.
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