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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Have you tried and failed to lose weight with dieting? If so, you know how frustrating it can be battle with your willpower for weeks on end, only to fall off the diet wagon once again, and see all those hard-lost pounds creeping back on. Dieting doesn’t work – but what’s the alternative?
If you want to not only lose weight but to stay healthy and keep it off, the solution is to make a long term change in your eating and lifestyle habits. Everyone knows this really, but it’s easier said than done, especially if – like so many – you have a tendency towards emotional overeating.
Many people rely on willpower to make the necessary changes, but end up getting sidetracked by self-sabotaging behaviours such as bingeing or not exercising. If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life in a constant mental battle with your willpower, it’s necessary to get your mind on your side. Do this, and you’ll find yourself actually wanting to eat healthy food and to exercise – and having no desire to pig out on junk or be inactive. And one of the most effective ways to reprogram your mind is to use hypnosis.
Hypnosis involves entering a deeply relaxed trance state, in which the subconscious mind is open to suggestion. When you enter this state, you can receive suggestions to the effect that you enjoy eating healthy foods in appropriate amounts, that you enjoy exercising, and similar empowering statements. With some time and repetition, your mind will begin to adopt these suggestions as fact, and you in effect build a new belief system that supports you in living a healthier lifestyle and losing weight without struggle.
If you go the traditional route, you can visit a hypnotherapist who’ll help you to enter a trance and give you the suggestions. However, this isn’t always practical, and fortunately, self-hypnosis works just as well (and is much cheaper!) One of the easiest ways to reap the benefits of self-hypnosis is to use a weight loss hypnosis CD (or download).
Hypnosis recordings for weight loss typically contain soundtracks that make it easier to enter a hypnotic trance state, and may also feature verbal suggestions. Not all have the suggestions however, and you might want to create your own, in which case you should look for a hypnosis CD that has relaxing sounds or music only. The best ones feature brainwave entrainment technologies such as binaural beats or isochronic tones. These are repetitive sounds of specific frequencies which have been shown to have a powerful effect on your state of consciousness, and make it much easier to achieve the necessary trance state than conventional techniques.
When you have your CD, it’s important to set some time aside each day to listen regularly, so your mind will gradually come to accept the new beliefs. Using self-hypnosis for weight loss is very powerful, but it’s not a magical quick fix, so make sure you’re committed to regular sessions when you begin. It’s certainly worth the effort though when you find yourself adopting healthy habits without resistance, and find the weight melting off as a result!
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.