Brainwave entrainment is a method to stimulate the brain into entering a specific state by using a pulsing sound, light, or electromagnetic field. The pulses elicit the brain’s ‘frequency following’ response, encouraging the brainwaves to align to the frequency of a given beat.
alpha brain waves benefits | relax
So many people across the world over the last few thousand years have gained huge benefits from meditation. From a deeper spiritual awareness to better health, the list of advantages are enormous!
So is it something, or nothing, or somewhere in between? Something most people can agree on is that meditation one day can be completely different to the next and this is all part of the experience.
Often you’ll start to lose your sense of time and space, if you can stop thoughts interrupting, here’s the problem. Try and stop thinking at will, go on try it now and see what happens…
Unless you’re very different to most of us, you just listened to a whole lot of inner dialogue chattering away just now. This is a problem that we all have to deal with one way or another. You get peace and serenity from the decreasing internal dialogue.
So what is actually going on when we are meditating? Research into brainwaves and altered states have shown us that the deeper we meditate, the slower our brain waves get. This is part of the sensation of meditation that we feel as the brain slows to a point that we usually only reach during sleep.
Brainwave Frequency Chart
Frequency range Name Usually associated with:
> 40 Hz Gamma waves Higher mental activity, including perception, problem solving, fear, and consciousness
13 – 40 Hz Beta waves Active, busy or anxious thinking and active concentration, arousal, cognition
7 – 13 Hz Alpha waves Relaxation (while awake), pre- sleep and pre-wake drowsiness
4 – 7 Hz Theta waves Dreams, deep meditation, REM sleep
Brainwave entrainment is a method to stimulate the brain into entering a specific state by using a pulsing sound, light, or electromagnetic field. The pulses elicit the brain? ?requency following?response, encouraging the brainwaves to align to the frequency of a given beat.
This ?requency following?response of brainwave entrainment can be seen in action with those prone to epilepsy. If a strobe flashes at their seizure frequency, the brain will ?ntrain?to the flashing light, resulting in a seizure.
On the positive side, this same mechanism is commonly used to induce many brainwave states; such as a trance, enhanced focus, relaxation, meditation or sleep induction. The brainwave entrainment effectively pushes the entire brain into a certain state.
Brainwave entrainment works for almost everyone. It is a great way to lead your mind into states that you might usually have difficulty reaching, allowing you to experience what those states feel like.
THE HYPE
There is a lot of marketing hype around brainwave entrainment. It is sold with promises of increasing IQ, promoting weight loss, ?ind-tripping? enhancing creativity, concentration, inducing spiritual states and more.
While these claims are not entirely true, they are not altogether false either. In practice, the claims are based on an overly-simplistic view of how the brain and the brainwaves function.
THE RUB
People are very seldom deficient in a certain brainwave type in all areas of their brain. Usually the distribution is much spottier, with an excess in one area and a deficiency in another.
We are all different, especially when it comes to the distribution of our brainwaves. Boosting a certain brainwave state may be beneficial for one person, and emotionally uncomfortable for another. Without knowing each person? starting position, entrainment can be rather ?it and miss?
If brainwave entrainment leaves you with unwanted side-effects (see below) or discomfort, you?e probably encouraging a range of brainwaves that are already excessive in some area of your brain. The way around this is to get a brain map to see what your brain? strengths and weaknesses are, and see what (if any) brainwaves could use some encouragement.