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.
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What is the one thing we all share in our modern society, whether or not we are male or female?
Come on, think fast, think fast. You are used to that.
What is it that encompasses each of our days, shortens our life, gives us a big belly, makes us impotent or infertile, bald, sleep deprived, cranky, overwhelmed, cynical, resentful, have high blood pressure, and gas-you got it, it’s too much stress.
And stress makes the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome far, far worse than they have to be.
Essentially PMS is more painful, two to four times more painful, according to research studies, if you are stressed out.
There is increasing evidence that stress plays a significant role in all problems related to reproduction in women, from lack of libido, skipped periods and amenorrhea… to infertility and miscarriage.
When the brain feels that your body is being threatened, either physically or psychologically, it doesn’t matter which, it will release a flood of stress hormones like adrenalin and cortisol into your blood stream to ready your body to flee or freeze into position, as a survival mode.
Any system in your body, that doesn’t have to do with survival, will either slow down or shut down completely. Your digestion, growth, and reproductive systems will stall out as blood is rushed to your leg muscles and heart, preparing you for defense.
If you are in a constant state of stress or distress, especially if it never is relieved, your brain will continue sending out stress hormones until there is a great chemical imbalance in your body.
In order to prime you for a fast exit, cortisol heightens your senses and after a long period of time, this stimulates feelings of irritability, anger, and rage…the not so nice symptoms we can show the world during this time.
Eventually, because the triggers haven’t gone away, your adrenal glands tire from pumping out so much cortisol, and you are left feeling depleted with chronic fatigue.
Cortisol steals the progesterone from your body to make more of itself, causing other hormones like estrogen to increase in an attempt to overcompensate for the imbalance. Once progesterone is impaired, estrogen dominance further antagonizes PMS symptoms.
PMS, exacerbated by stress, presents many of the same symptoms as Bipolar Disorder-being overwhelmed one minute, happy the next, leaving you sad and overly sensitive much of the time.
Symptoms of PMS That Are Magnified By Stress
Backache
Bloating due to fluid retention
Breast tenderness
Cravings
Hot flashes
Lack of energy
Nausea and vomiting
Severe fatigue
Skin problems such as acnes or itching
Weight gain
Agitation
Anger
Depression
Irritability
Mood swings
Nervousness
Sad feelings
Confusion
Difficulty focusing
Loss of memory
Anxiety
Premenstrual syndrome generally starts in your mid-thirties, about two weeks before menstruation and becomes increasingly more severe as time goes on. It is of no coincidence that at that time of your life, stress is generally at its highest.
Stress, and the manufacture of cortisol, deplete your progesterone production. If progesterone production is increased, these symptoms either go away altogether or are greatly diminished.
If stress is managed, progesterone will come back naturally. Changing your brainwave state, and stopping the over production of cortisol, will bring back healthy levels of progesterone and alleviate many of PMS’ symptoms.
Brainwave entrainment is an effective way to alter your dominant brainwave frequency to manage stress and in turn, reduce painful symptoms. This proven technology introduces audio and/or visual pulses or tones to the brain with the intention of changing its state of consciousness. Excessive stress is produced by high-beta brainwaves and by listening to specially designed brainwave entrainment recordings, you can calm the brain, changing its chemical makeup, and balance your hormones.
Being a woman doesn’t have to hurt so much. Change your brainwaves.
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.
This ‘frequency 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 ‘entrain’ 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, ‘mind-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’s starting position, entrainment can be rather ‘hit and miss’.
If brainwave entrainment leaves you with unwanted side-effects (see below) or discomfort, you’re 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’s strengths and weaknesses are, and see what (if any) brainwaves could use some encouragement.