Scientists come up with the craziest ideas.

Ever wondered if you and your pet have some sort of psychic link?

Turns out you do … only it’s not psychic so much as electromagnetic.

And it’s the same link you have with your significant other, only it’s more easily measured in animals.

One day, the director of the HeartMath Institute, Dr. Rollin McCraty, invited his 12-year-old son and his dog to the lab.

He fitted the two of them with electrocardiogram recorders, which record heart rhythms.

He asked his son to sit down in a chair and ignore the dog completely. The boy wasn’t supposed to interact with his pet in any way.

Instead, the boy focused on feeling into his heart and radiating love and appreciation for his pet, an exercise called a “Heart Lock-In.”

Not only did the boy’s heartbeat slow and become more rhythmic, but the dog’s heartbeat became synchronized with its owner’s—at the exact time the boy was doing the Heart Lock-In.

Then the boy got up and left the room. The dog’s heart rate spiked and became erratic. It was no longer linked with the boy’s.

This experiment was no one-off. It was later repeated with a woman and her horses. Again, when the woman was consciously radiating love for her pets, the animals’ heart rates synchronized with hers.

Researchers found evidence of this “heart-to-heart communication” between people when they were (1) sleeping together, (2) watching a loved one do something dangerous (in this case, firewalking), or (3) consciously practicing heart coherence techniques like the Heart Lock-In.

So something happens between you and your loved ones—whether they be human or animal—when you’re physically close and consciously focusing on the love you feel for them.

But what’s going on?

The HeartMath Institute was founded to explore that question. It investigates how we use the power of the heart to improve our health, our relationships, and our world.

And what it found is that the heart generates a powerful electromagnetic field that extends several feet beyond the body. (That field is 5000 times greater than the field produced by the brain.)

When people touch each other, they exchange some of that electromagnetic energy.

And there’s information in that energy we can read.

For example, when a mother holds her baby and places all her attention on her child, her brain waves synchronize to the baby’s heartbeat. She’s literally reading her baby’s electromagnetic signals—but she doesn’t have a clue she’s doing it.

Now here’s the really exciting part:

By consciously cultivating positive emotions, you can affect your heart’s electromagnetic field. You can make it smoother and more rhythmic.

And when you do that, everyone in your presence feels the difference…

Because they’re in contact with your heart’s electromagnetic field.

Their heart rate may not synchronize to yours, if they’re strangers or people who aren’t really close to you, but they’ll feel the difference.

So your emotions are more than just feelings you have inside.

They’re energy broadcast by your heart, and they physically affect other people.

You might be wondering…

How can you use this information to improve your relationships?

How can you get in sync with your loved one, just as the boy and his pet did in the example that opened this article?

It takes just three simple steps.

1. Focus on your heart.

Feel into the center of your chest.

2. Breathe through your heart.

Take a deep breath. Imagine that air rushing through your heart. Exhale and imagine the air whooshing out. Do that several times.

3. Feel love and appreciation.

Picture your loved one. Think of everything you love about him. All those traits that you appreciate so much. Feel that love and gratitude welling inside you. Indulge in those feelings for as long as desired.

And that’s it!

If your loved one is in the room with you—even if he doesn’t know you’re doing this exercise—he will feel the power of your heart energy.

Try it one evening when you’re sitting on the couch together. If you’re physically touching, all the better. Don’t tell him what you’re doing.

Then see what happens.

Because you’re not wearing heart monitors, you won’t be able to tell if your heart rates have synchronized, but you may notice him breathing more easily and becoming more affectionate.

If you want to take this exercise to the next level, teach him those three steps and do it together simultaneously. Notice how amazing it feels!

Your heart is powerful. It broadcasts your feelings to the world. Where possible, make sure love is the message.