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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How often have you heard someone say, “I don’t look forward to getting old”? Perhaps you’ve even said it yourself.
Given that we’re all going to age, what’s the worst part of growing older?
None of us likes the thought of having our skin wrinkle and gradually become thin. Neither do we want to lose our hair. Fighting a spare tire is also pretty much a losing battle for many of us as we enter our 40s. Plus, we find our joints stiffening and our muscles sore in the mornings, making it harder to get out of bed-not to mention slowing our gait and putting us at risk of a fall.
Though these side effects of aging are unpleasant, the one most of us dread above all is the very real possibility that we’ll experience a steep decline of our mental faculties.
To know we could lose our mind as we age is simply frightening.
With mental decline, there comes an unbearable isolation. To find your memory failing you, and possibly receiving the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, puts you at the mercy of others who decide your destiny. In many cases, those you most love no longer want to be around you for long because it’s painful for them to see you in this state.
Aging and eventual death are the destiny of each and every one of us-there’s no avoiding the downhill slope. But what we don’t have to experience is the deterioration of our mental capacity.
Growing older simply doesn’t have to include becoming decrepit.
The incredibly good news is that there’s now a technology that can slow and in many cases halt mental decline. It can even sharpen your brain, with some reporting as many as ten points shaved off their golf score! Golfing is one of the great joys of many in their golden years.
Brainwave balancing fortifies the body against unnecessary aging because it gets to the root of the aging process-the control center for the entirety of our bodily systems, our amazing brain.
The average brain is considerably out of balance, which affects everything from the autonomic nervous system to the clarity of our mind. Balance the brain’s hemispheres and lobes, and fuzzy thinking, indecisiveness, confusion, feeling overwhelmed, and depression vanish.
It’s actually possible to rejuvenate an aging brain. You see, it used to be believed that brain cells, once dead, could never be replaced. This turned out to be a myth. We now know that we can generate new brain cells throughout our lives. Some of these new cells are actively involved with memory. Stimulating the brain with mental activity increases the number of neurons and reinvigorates our neural pathways.
In fact, the first evidence of the development of new brain cells was brought forward as far back as the 1960s, though current beliefs about the brain meant that this revolutionary discovery wasn’t accepted until decades later. Now, we’re all benefiting from the new science of neuroplasticity.
Balancing brainwaves not only boosts the brain’s performance, improving memory and acuity, but it also helps the rest of our bodily systems to function in an optimal manner. In fact, the side benefits of training the brain with this noninvasive method can be huge in terms of the quality of our lives as we age.
Consider just one spinoff from balancing the brain-the way that many have found themselves spontaneously losing weight. One well-known star in the music world lost 55 pounds, an unexpected bonus of balancing her brain.
The advantages of such weight loss include reduced blood pressure and a healthier heart, improved sleep and the many benefits it brings to health, a strengthened immune system to protect against cancer, a lessening of the craving for addictive substances, and a desire to take care of ourselves by eating and exercising right-all of which impact the quality of our aging.
It’s now widely recognized that stress also has a tremendous impact on our physical and mental wellbeing. When we’re severely stressed, or stress is prolonged, the autonomic nervous system often becomes “stuck” in an unhealthy mode.
When this protective mechanism is either in constant overdrive or frozen, the effect on our physical and emotional wellbeing long-term is devastating. But with a balanced brain, the fight-flight-freeze response returns to normal, enhancing our state of wellness.
It comes down to this: Balance the brain, and you help balance your whole body. Cell replication continues at an improved level well into old age, accompanied by the mental alertness to enjoy a healthy, invigorating, joyful everyday life.
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.