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.
relaxing sounds | brain food
No seriously. If you could have either one, right now, which one would you choose?
What you answer could tell you a whole lot about what is going on in your brain.
If a great big, ring-shaped piece of fried dough, dripping with a white sugary glaze, gets you all hot and bothered, chances are that it’s the stress hormone cortisol coursing through your bloodstream, calling the shots.
There are times in our life when we crave high fat, high carbohydrate foods like donuts, cookies, chips, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, and maybe even those deep-fried chocolate bars. What we don’t realize is, there is a good reason for this. It’s not just that we like to eat junk food or a whole lot of starch. We are being guided to these foods by chemicals released in the brain.
If thinking about when you get to eat next, trumps thinking about your next “date”, chances are you are stressed out and your brain is releasing high amounts of the hormone cortisol.
Cortisol can save your life, if you’re being chased by a human- eating creature, but it doesn’t really help you much if you’re late with your credit card payment.
Both situations are stressful and activate our fight or flight response. When the brain is triggered by a threat, physical or perceived, it releases chemicals into our blood stream that energize the body, in case we have to make a run for it.
If the threat ends up not being a physical one, and seems to have no end (putting the credit card bill in a drawer out of sight doesn’t make the fact that it needs to be paid, go away), the stress compounds on itself and an excessive release of stress hormones, keep pumping into the body.
When you have an excess of cortisol flooding your body, the last thing you’re thinking of, is having sex.
The majority of your blood flow will be directed to your heart and leg muscles and any other systems that will aid you in a fast get-away. Cortisol tells all the other systems, not needed for escape, to shut down or even attack itself, just for good measure. Your digestion system slows down, but ironically, cortisol tells you to eat lots of high carbohydrate foods anyhow, storing the extra fat around your middle, if their calories are burnt up immediately.
If you’re stressed, you probably have a “spare tire” around your belly because cortisol tells your body to hang onto every bit of that fat….and that’ll be the last place the body will release energy from. You could have skinny legs and arms, but it you are stressed out a lot, you’ll still have a big tummy.
Having sex, or making babies, isn’t considered a priority, as far as the brain sees it, when it has been triggered with a threat, so feeling turned on to copulation won’t even be on the menu.
So, if you’re craving carbohydrates and high fats, and would rather eat than make love, you probably should look into a way to relieve some of the stress in your life.
Changing your brainwave, from a high stress state, like in the brainwave high-beta, to a more relaxed state, like in the brainwave alpha, could have you by-pass the next donut shop.
If you can’t remember the last time you stimulated something other than your palate, maybe it’s time you changed the messages in your brain. Stress will always be here, but what we do with it can make a difference.
Brainwave entrainment is a scientifically proven self-help tool that alters the brain’s dominant frequency using specific sound patterns, with the intent of producing an altered state of consciousness. It’s fast, efficient, and it works.
Sex or donut?
What sounds good about now?
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.