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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Stress is killing you. That’s a known fact. Removing the causes of stress in your life – your job, your relationships, your circumstances – is not something that can be done overnight. So in that case, what is the best way to relax? For many busy people, meditation is the answer to that question, and the easiest form of meditation to learn and practice is alpha meditation.
How Stress is Killing You
The body’s evolved response to stress – the ‘fight-or-flight’ response – entails several hormonal changes. If the source of stress is relatively short-lived, the body’s “stress thermostat” can reset itself to neutral levels within an hour or so. But if stress continues – whether actual or just perceived – then those hormonal imbalances will eventually do permanent damage.
Specifically, when stress is perceived the adrenal glands release epinephrine (a.k.a. adrenaline), norepinephrine, and cortisol. Collectively, these hormones increase heart and respiration rates and boost blood-sugar levels, preparing the body for action. The role of cortisol is to switch off various bodily functions that demand a great deal of energy or resources, enabling a full diversion of energy to reacting to danger. Such functions include digestion, reproduction, growth, and certain aspects of the immune system. Thus, the body’s ability to repair itself is weakened just when extra demands are being placed on it. It is no wonder that stress is so clearly connected to heart disease.
Interestingly, cortisol also changes the structure of the brain itself, causing enlargement of the amygdala, which controls fear and other emotional responses, while inhibiting neuronal connections in the hippocampus, which is involved in memory formation. Taken together, these changes impair the brain’s ability to remember emotional experiences properly. One’s whole system becomes geared toward an expectation of more stress, perpetuating a vicious cycle of physical and psychological damage. We urgently need to break that cycle by learning how to relax.
Alpha Meditation to Relieve Stress
While we could attempt to fight stress with expensive drugs that have their own side-effects and long-term health risks, there is a cheaper, safer way to restore the balance of mind and body. Meditation can be used repeatedly and reliably to take the brain to a state of tranquility, where perceived dangers melt away and all the associated hormonal havoc is restored to order.
Alpha meditation refers to the brainwave pattern exhibited when the mind turns inwards, losing its obsessive focus on the details and duties of daily life. At this frequency (7 – 13 Hertz), the brain slows down from its everyday waking state, but actually becomes more powerful. Alpha is the first step towards the ultimate relaxation of sleep, and a definite move away from stress.
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.