Anshu Bahanda: Think about this for a moment. When was the last time you had a conversation that didn’t include the words, “I’m so tired all the time. I’m exhausted. I can’t handle this anymore. I’m overwhelmed”? And you’re not tired from one late night. You’re not tired from one busy week. But it’s that deep, lingering exhaustion, the kind sleep doesn’t fix. The kind that settles into your body, into your mind, into your nervous system. And we’ve normalized it. We joke about it. We built entire lives around being constantly depleted. We say, “Oh, oh my God, you know what I have to do? I have X, Y, Z”. And all these things that are happening to us, burnout, anxiety, fatigue. They’re no longer happening. Occasionally, they’re quietly becoming the baseline. And here’s what most people don’t realize. Research from Harvard Medical School shows that chronic stress keeps the nervous system locked in a heightened state of alert, even when we rest, even when we sleep, even when we think we’ve switched off. So the body never truly recovers. Which raises a bigger question. How do we heal when our mind is in permanent overdrive? And what if healing burnout means learning how to regulate the system that’s been carrying all of it? And what if the heart has a far bigger role to play than we’ve been taught to believe?
I am Anshu Bahanda, and this is the Wellness Algorithm, where wellness isn’t static. It evolves as our lives evolve, shaped by time, choices and the rhythm we move through. Today, we’re exploring healing burnout, anxiety, and fatigue in a world that never switches off, because so many of us are doing all the right things. Sleeping, resting, switching off screens, trying to slow down. And yet, somehow, things feel off. And, it isn’t just stress anymore. Emerging science suggests the body isn’t organized in isolated parts. The brain, the heart, and the gut are in constant communication. And the way they work together influences emotional regulation, resilience, and recovery. To explore this, I’m joined by Leyla Salvadé, a heartfulness therapist. She’s a spiritual technologist and she’s the founder of Cora, it’s a system designed to rewire the human operating system from constant mental effort to heart-based coherence.
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Welcome to the chat, Leyla, and thank you for being here with us today.
Leyla Salvadé: Thank you so much. I’m so excited.
AB: So Leyla, I want to ask you something, to begin with, for ages, for decades, we’ve thought that the brain is the control centre. But neuroscience is now discovering that the heart plays a more important role than we thought it did. So what do researchers mean when they talk about heart intelligence? And why might the heart play a central role? Can you talk about it? Why might the heart play a central role in emotional regulation, in preventing burnout? And, talk to us a little bit about the whole ethos behind what you do.
LS: Sure. So the intelligence of the heart is intuition first and foremost. And I also want to share that, we say the brain as if there’s only one brain in our system, which is false, right? The heart has 40,000 sensory neurites, and the heart brain functions independently from the head brain. So I always like to say head brain, heart brain, gut brain.
AB: Right.
LS: It’s an important distinction. And yes, the heart is the greatest regulator in our system. It is sending more information to the head brain than vice versa, and it is signaling whether we are coherent or not. So when we talk about the science of the heart, it is so fundamentally important for us to really understand that the heart has its own neural network system made up of 40,000 sensory neurites that’s sending more information to the head brain than vice versa. When we learn to start moving our conscious awareness from our head brain back into our heart brain, that’s when we start learning how to build back coherence.
AB: Okay, so there’s one thing which I want you to explain to me before we carry on. You said the heart sends more information to the head brain than vice versa. Explain that to me.
LS: Signals. Information. Right energy. So just how there’s a neural network system in the head brain, the same thing happens in the heart brain. And scientists at HeartMath actually discovered that the way information or energy travels through the body, it’s first through the heart or into the heart. That’s the first point of receiving energy or information. Then it shoots down to the gut brain, and then lastly it shoots up to the head brain. So when we talk about energy or information or signals, right, within the body, that’s how you can really imagine it, right. It’s first being taken in or received through the heart brain, then shooting down to the gut brain, and then up to the head brain. So if you also go back to how we are formed, the heart is the first organ that is formed in the uterus at day 20-21, right. So this is the initial signaling system in our system and it is sending and broadcasting energy information constantly.
AB: Amazing. And my next question to you is how did we get here where we’ve almost forgotten about the heart. It’s all about it being a physical thing. It’s a physical organ that pumps the blood. That’s how we treat the heart. Now how did we forget about its importance?
LS: It’s a great question. I believe we forgot about it because we put so much emphasis on our modern school system currently, which we all kind of went through, right? And that specific school system was designed to train, originally, factory workers and yet we still are sending our children to that type of education, right? Based off of memory alone, right? We are training the intelligence of the head, which is logic, and it operates off of memory. So the way we got there is by creating a school system that completely neglects the heart brain or any other part of our brain being or human operating system, I like to say. And it disconnects us, around six years old, if not sooner, from the centre of who we are and how we actually are meant to function and operate, and really focuses and trains our conscious awareness or consciousness to locate and anchor itself only in the head brain, disconnecting us from everything else.
AB: And Leyla, talk to me about Cora, what you’re developing, the app that you’re developing which combines AI, I think it combines HRV. Tell me more about it.
LS: Yeah. So in 2014 I founded my first company which is Standing Light. And it was a global events and coaching company. And through that I started developing the Cora method, formerly known as the Standing Light method. But over the last couple of years I started realizing the need for a heart guide. Something and someone or an app that starts to really train the intelligence of the heart and its electromagnetic power, which has a huge influence on our wellbeing and intelligence training as well. So I developed Cora to ultimately train the heart, brain and activate our holistic self-regulation system for optimal self-regulation ultimately. So Cora stands for Connect, Open, Resonate, Activate.
AB: Okay.
LS: And you tried it at the.
AB: Yeah, and it was lovely. And I’m going to make you do it here again in a bit.
LS: Gladly. It’s a multidisciplinary practice and protocol, both education-based and also experiential-based where we really train and embody the teachings of the heart and soul.
AB: Okay, but what I want to ask you is, there are a lot of people I know, they meditate every day, they journal, they practice mindfulness, they do yoga. I mean, you name it, and people are doing it and they’re still feeling that something is not right. They’re still stressed.
LS: Yeah.
AB: What makes what you do different, and what makes it effective?
LS: So I want to first start by sharing a fact or a stat that blew my mind. We have a $6.2 trillion wellness industry, and yet we have an 82% burnout rate globally,
AB: 6.2 trillion. Oh my goodness. Wow.
LS: So all these apps and also 100 million users that are tracking their HRV and their biometrics, right? And yet still 82% burnout, globally.
AB: 82% burnout. And how do you measure that?
LS: The burnout?
AB: The burnout.
LS: That’s the stat that we discovered, I think, from different research that was developed. But, ultimately what is missing is we are not going to the source of the matter that is the heart, right? If we understand from both a biological, energetic, physiological level, the heart being the first brain, the heart being the most powerful conductor of our electromagnetic field, it emits the most powerful electromagnetic field in the human body. It’s the mind. So we can talk about that as well. But this, this understanding of mindfulness and, you know, tracking HRV, it’s all stats, but we are not, we don’t have a system that’s actually training what creates the coherence. And that’s what I set out to do with Cora because it’s just like, you know, we’ll sign up to a gym, but most people don’t go until or unless they have training with a trainer.
AB: Right.
LS: So CORA is the trainer that teaches you how to use all the different equipment in the best and coherent manner.
AB: And how long do you think it takes Cora, say, someone who’s going through burnout signs up to it. How long would it take them if they were to do everything that they’re being told to do before they feel a difference?
LS: It’s instant. I work at a clinic, of course, and then I also have my own private practice. In my private practice, I have the Cora ceremony. And it’s a three-hour deep dive into the practice. Within those three hours, you can see a physiological shift in the person. I mean, they come out from that experience, truly their next highest version.
AB: Wow, that’s amazing. And, from what I’m seeing of burnout and of chronic fatigue, this isn’t just psychological, it’s physiological. People are feeling it in their systems. So how does what you do, this heart brain synchrony, influence the way that the nervous system responds to the long-term stress and also to long-term trauma that people are storing within themselves?
LS: Right. So the long-term trauma, what it is, it’s, you know, I talk about emotions. Emotions are energy in motion. But the reason why we then build up dis-ease, which long-term dis-ease in our system turns into disease, is because we are not letting the emotions be in motion.
AB: Okay.
LS: We’re not taught it.
AB: Okay.
LS: Does that make sense?
AB: Yeah.
LS: So the way we approach it through the Cora method is we recognize, okay, we go into the heart, we go into the field and we start to become the conductors of our own reality again. We approach emotion just as a, as a signal, as a code, as a teacher and we demystify it and really go deeper into it so that it can go from being contracted and a trauma to understanding what the source of that was.
AB: And how do you measure that? Is there a way of measuring it?
LS: Well, coherence. So you were talking about the heart brain coherence, right? It’s about elevating your baseline, right? Because when we have a low baseline, we have low resilience.
AB: Okay.
LS: And when we have low resilience, we are more agitated, we are more anxious, we are more stressed, we are more incoherent. All of that has a physiological effect on our wellbeing, right? And so when you start training your heart brain coherence and ultimately what I like to call the electromagnetic intelligence, because that’s everything, right? When we start to. My whole mission is to demystify the human operating system and we can talk about the science and the HRV and all of that. But with the Cora method, all I want to do is offer a manual, a very simple manual for the human operating system so that we can remember ultimately how we function.
AB: And do you use biofeedback as a way of measuring?
LS: So the emWave from HeartMath, which is where I trained, and then I went much deeper into also the sacred teachings and ancient teachings of the heart and created the Cora method through that, we have the emWave from HeartMath and then with Cora, we are partnering with a biotech company that goes, their emotional languaging model is unparalleled. And so we are going to be partnering with them for Cora to show a whole new data reality on emotional awareness.
AB: And tell me something Leyla, how does this work in a way that therapy hasn’t worked like people have spent years in therapy and they still feel like they’re stressed. And they say, but we can’t help it. We walk out of our therapist room and there’s traffic outside. How do you, because obviously there’s things that trigger them still?
LS: Right. Of course. I say this all the time. You know, I’m a heartfulness therapist and I’ve done all different kinds of therapies, of course. When we only do the traditional therapy, it is head-based. We don’t heal through the head, we heal through the heart.
AB: Okay.
LS: What I mean by that is when we move our awareness from the head into the heart and we start to feel again. So we’re not approaching it from a mental state, right? We are feeling it again. And that’s why people usually are scared of doing therapy or going deeper into their inner work. Because sometimes, you know, those, especially those deeper traumas, can be scary to approach and go into and face again. But in the right environment, with the right therapist, it can be the most empowering healing experience. But it’s, it’s deeper, right? It’s not just traditional psychology mental therapy. It’s embodiment where you go in and you feel again so that you can release it and alchemize it and move it through your field to shift from a state of contraction and fear back into a state of expansion and love and trust.
AB: Okay, and tell me, what does research on HRV and coherence tell us about the long term resilience? About emotional health, about physical health? Do you use these markers?
LS: In Cora, we will. Right now in my own private practice, I don’t.
AB: Oh, you don’t? Okay. Okay.
LS: No, it’s, it’s. That’s where I work more on an energetic level. And I don’t need to. See, my mission is really to empower the individual to not have to use something outside of themselves in order to believe the shift happening within.
AB: Okay.
LS: We will have that for Cora, for those who want it. But for me personally, I don’t wear an Apple watch.
AB: I don’t either.
LS: I don’t. I even put a, you know, I was at a VR lab the other day and I put on the Oculus, and the headache that I got was unbelievable.
AB: I don’t even wear an Oura ring, as I can see you don’t. Everyone I know wears one. I don’t, because I don’t want to wear a device on me.
LS: Because I believe we are the most intelligent device ever created. And that’s the point of training intelligence, right? If we train our. Sorry, not training intelligence, but training intuition. When we train our intuition, we don’t need an outside device or anything to tell us whether something is working or not. We know that’s the power and the intelligence of the heart. It knows. And my truth will be different from your truth, right? But if we don’t train that intelligence and we keep being slaves to devices or systems that are telling us, you know, there’s. I mean, I was having this conversation with one of my friends about how she just got a notification from, I think it was some, maybe it was an Oura ring or something, and it said, it gave her almost a little bit of a scary response like, be careful, this or that may be happening. Somebody that doesn’t have enough sovereignty would have a whole sleepless night about that one message from their biomarker, right. So they’re amazing. Especially for the people that still don’t, you know, they need the physical five sense proof. But at Cora, and in my way of practicing, I want to empower the individual to trust in their own design.
AB: Thank you. I want to ask you about AI because Quora uses AI now, there’s a lot of conflicting opinions. People are worried about AI. How do you feel? The kind of AI you’re using, which is human-centered AI, how can it help people feel more embodied, feel calmer and not less calm, like not cause the more stress?
LS: Right. That would be a nightmare. Well, we haven’t gone to that stage yet. We’re at precede, we’re at a very beginning stage with Cora. However, I used to have a podcast as well. I had Tristan Harris on it. So ethical AI has been in my field for many, many years.
I’ve been aware. The way I approach AI is, and the way we’re going to really train Cora, she’s never going to tell an individual what to do. She is designed to really be a reflection of your soul, of my soul, of our collective soul, and reinforce how we feel. So she’ll ask, how do you feel? Where do you feel it? What is coming up for you? That’s the basics of good therapy anyway, right. You never tell anyone what to do. You just invite it to come through them. That’s how we train intuition. So that’s one kind of code that we will be, let’s say encrypting into Cora. But I also, in terms of AI, when you understand, because I geek out on the electromagnetic field, and quantum, quantum physics.
AB: Okay.
LS: And when you understand field technology, right? Which the heart emits the most powerful electromagnetic field. And just to explain that really quickly, our thoughts are electric, our emotions are magnetic. So our thoughts and emotions are what are the codes that inform this electromagnetic field. So this electromagnetic field, you’re emitting one right now. I’m emitting one right now. And field-to-field, on a subtle level, we are communicating a hundred times more than through words, right? So when we feel something, when that inner voice is signaling something, oh, I’m not resonating with this person, or be careful or something feels off, trust that, because it’s your intuition speaking. And this field is the most powerful intelligent source of information we have. And when you understand the electromagnetic field, and you understand how the Earth emits an electromagnetic field as well as every other planet, then you start to realize what collective consciousness means. And then bringing that back to AI. All AI is, I believe, I know some people believe it’s sentient or it can be sentient. I don’t believe that because my definition of sentient is something that has a soul, right? Or a spirit.
AB: Right.
LS: I don’t believe that AI will ever have a soul. It’s merely a collective consciousness informed. So our fields, our consciousness is what’s informing AI.
AB: So you think it’s a reflection of our collective?
LS: 100%.
AB: Interesting. So you don’t think it’ll ever go beyond humanity as people are worried that intelligence is just exponential and not linear?
LS: I do believe it can, which is, but informed by our consciousness. And then it can take on and start making decisions, which is why it’s so important to be intentional about how we are informing it. It’s like a parent-child relationship. The more love you raise your child with and through, the more loving they will be in their reactions and their responses, in their way of being internally and externally. And that’s why humanity, I believe, has an incredible responsibility even just, you know, please. Thank you. Could you please help me with this? Being loving, being kind, and reinforcing those relationships are virtues of the heart.
AB: Interesting. That’s really lovely. To use the heart, you know, to inform AI as well is lovely. I want to ask you, this year, in 2026, what is it that you feel is going to be, you know, really different and what’s going to be a breakthrough in terms of wellness? Because like you were talking about, 80% people go through burnout in spite of all the amount of money being spent, trillions being spent, and it hasn’t helped really, it hasn’t helped humanity. And we seem to be heading towards, every day I get phone calls from people who either themselves have issue, mental health issues, their children do. The world is going through a major crisis. Is there anything that you see which can help in 2026 or any development?
LS: Yeah, well, I think it’s an internal development. I believe that we are more and more starting to go from external validation to internal trust. That is a shift that I see happening. I really believe that that shift alone will change so much. It’s going to take time for the collective to get to that operating system ultimately. But the more we start really focusing on vibrational realities, which we are more and more, you know, there’s so many companies I see that are doing vibrational, healing devices, right? So we’re at the, we’re at the forefront of knowing this stuff. And seeing it. But the collective will become more and more aware of it and start using it as well. And you know, there is a saying that, in the future, medicine will be vibrational.
AB: Yes. And, that sound, which is again, vibrational therapy was, is, I can see it’s playing a lot. It’s playing a lot of importance in people’s lives already.
LS: Yeah. So the shift ultimately from, you know, again needing, you know, an Aura ring or an apple watch or whatever it may be, I feel like more and more we’re going to start training our own intelligent design and understanding and how to actually use it so that we can trust our intuition again.
AB: Lovely. Now, Leyla, you did this lovely meditation with us at Kayan Festival, the wellness festival. Do you think we could do something for just three, four minutes?
LS: Sure.
AB: Which gives people an idea of what you’re talking about when you talk about heartfulness.
LS: Yeah. Before we jump into that, I just want to share what we’re doing is training our consciousness to shift from the head into the heart. And we know consciousness is non-local, right? There’s all the science behind that now, thankfully, finally. And I really want to share that you have a choice every single day to choose love over fear. And what that means is when you have your consciousness anchored in the head brain, you’re operating through force. When you shift it and have it centered and anchored in the heart, you’re operating through power.
AB: Wonderful.
LS: So we’re going to shift our consciousness. We’re going to experience the shift of consciousness from the head into the heart.
AB: Lovely. Okay, lovely. Now tell me how, firstly, how long do you think this would stay with people?
LS: When I first started experiencing that, it changed. It was instantaneous. Because when you feel that internal shift, you go from this heavy, buzzing, contraction, confusing, overwhelming feeling to suddenly feeling this sense of, oh, my goodness, a sense of awe, this sense of expansion, this sense of reconnection. And it’s a remembering. We all know this by heart, this feeling. It’s just a matter of retraining our consciousness to center in the heart, which is also a muscle, right? And so anything we do takes training, but. But it is, for most of my clients and who I work with, it’s an instant shift.
AB: And how long will it stay once they get to the heart? Do they have to do it every day? Would you recommend it?
LS: Absolutely, yes. It’s like going to the gym, right? If you want a six pack, you’re going to show up every day and work out your abs. Right. And so the more heart centered you want to be, the more coherent you want to become, the more resilient and powerful and loving you want to become. That’s just training. And it’s as easy as shifting your awareness from here into here, just through visualization. So it’s instant and then it requires daily awareness. But I always say, you know, the first thing I do and share with my clients to do, and it’s so simple, people are going to laugh and say, that’s so ridiculous. It works.
The moment you wake up, place your hand on your heart. You might still be in dreamland, but just train your body to place your hand on your heart and make a conscious attempt to connect with your heart and move your awareness and consciousness into your heart and get up from that place, like stand up and wake up into your day centered in your heart.
AB: And that’s such an important thing you’ve said, because when we wake up, when we’re not fully awake, our brain is in theta wave and that’s when we can really make a difference. Yeah, that’s when we’re connected, right?
LS: Yeah, exactly.
AB: Okay, so I’m ready for your lovely meditation. I’m excited about this.
LS: I’m too. Okay, so I’ll invite the listeners. And if you’re driving, please don’t do this. I think we need to give that disclaimer. But if you’re in a space where you can close your eyes and sit comfortably, let us first start with a few deep breaths. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Two more deep breaths in through the nose, out through the mouth. One more. Beautiful. Now, I invite you to bring your conscious awareness to your forehead or your third eye. And envision now a small pearl-sized ball of light where your third eye rests. I invite you now to move all of your focus and conscious awareness into this ball of light, becoming that ball of light, activating your inner awareness. We’re now going to move this ball of light from the front of the head to the back of the head. Just take a few deep breaths as you move your consciousness from the front to the back of your head. And we now arrive at the back of the head where the top of the spine begins. And together, on the count of three, we’re going to start moving our consciousness down the spine, touching every vertebrae as we go down and arrive at the center of our spine where the back of our heart is. So on, the count of 1, 2, 3, start moving your consciousness down every vertebrae, down your spine, consciously feeling, sensing every vertebrae as you move down, down, down.
And slowly you arrive at the centre of your spine, right there, the vertebrae or the back of your heart is. Pause there. Take a deep breath. And you now see a tunnel of light that goes directly into the centre of your heart. Move your consciousness through that tunnel and into the centre of your heart. Now take a deep breath. Now you have arrived in the centre of your heart. Your consciousness is now anchored in the centre of your being within your heart, your inner sanctum, this most powerful organ and brain and muscle. Bring your hands to your heart. And connect now with the beat of your heart. This beat guides you constantly. And just take a moment of gratitude for your heart. Make a conscious attempt to fill your heart with gratitude, recognizing that it has been beating for you from the moment, nearly the moment you were conceived. This is our centre. It is who we are and how we are. And by training your conscious awareness to rest here, we put our consciousness back in its rightful place, letting the heart be the leader again, and the head brain the servant.
We let the signals from the heart move coherently up to the head brain and back down. And we open up that coherent channel from the head to the heart. Take a few deep breaths here and let your mouth crack into a smile, making that conscious attempt to really feel gratitude for your heart, the most powerful brain and organ within your body that is constantly signaling what is in your highest good, guiding you. And when your conscious awareness is settled here, you will hear, you will listen, and you will be guided to your greatest destiny and build a coherent field up again that starts to feel more harmonious and safe so that you can be and broadcast a coherent signal all around you and bring your field back into coherence all around you from this place, from your heart. You are the conductor of your field, and that is a powerful place to be and to create from. So let us share one more deep breath. And thank your heart, thank your body, thank your mind, thank your field for everything they do together for you. Really feel your consciousness and choose to anchor your consciousness here now.
And as you move into the rest of your day and through the rest of your day, recognize that you will inherently shift back into your head. And not to judge that because it’s simply a training. And the more you train and remind your consciousness to be in your heart, the more it will anchor there. One more deep breath. And slowly coming back into this present moment. And when you feel ready, open your eyes.
AB: That was so lovely. Thank you. That was really. I really went. I don’t know what you feel for all the listeners, but I went into a completely different space, so thank you for that.
Okay, so, Leyla, now we’re going to do a fun segment. It’s our rapid fire round. I’m going to throw something at you and you tell me how someone can sort it out in five seconds. Okay?
LS: Okay.
AB: Mind racing when you lie down to sleep.
LS: Oh my goodness. Just take a deep breath and start breathing deeply from your nose into your belly. And then bring your awareness back into your heart.
AB: Lovely. Sudden anxiety or tightness in the chest.
LS: Deep breaths again. Breath is such an important part. And the deeper you breathe, but bringing the breath all the way down to the belly, the more coherent you’ll become.
AB: Completely drained by mid-afternoon.
LS: Take a nap.
AB: You know how people reach for sugar? They’re exhausted.
LS: This is when I like to do the quick coherence technique, and that’s actually one of HeartMath’s fundamental practices. It’s 10 minutes, 5 minutes. You can do it really quickly. And it literally is shifting your awareness from your head into your heart, placing your hand on your heart and breathing in and out from your heart space.
AB: Irritable for no obvious reason.
LS: That’s the judging mind. So again, moving awareness from the head into the heart and practising gratitude and compassion.
AB: And the last one, feeling disconnected or emotionally numb, as a lot of us force ourselves to become because we’ve got so much trauma in us.
LS: Go into nature, really. Nature is such a powerful healing agent and it makes us feel reconnected.
AB: Thank you. Thank you, Leyla. That was a lovely, lovely, podcast.
LS: Thank you so much.
AB: And that was such a powerful conversation and meditation with Leyla Salvade. If there’s one thing I’m taking away, it’s that healing burnout, anxiety and fatigue isn’t about fixing ourselves faster or pushing through harder. It’s about learning how to work with the body, not against it. In a world that truly never switches off, our nervous system is constantly adapting, and what science is showing us now is that regulation, resilience and emotional balance are skills we can train gently, consistently, and with awareness. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it. And don’t forget to subscribe. It helps us bring conversations that bridge science, technology, and human wellbeing to you. I’m Anshu Bahanda from Wellness Curated. Take care of your nervous system, listen to what your body is asking for, and remember, even small shifts in awareness can change how we live, how we work, and how we heal. See you soon.
