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.
rain sounds sleep | peace meditation
For thousands of years meditation has settled the minds of countless people, you can get a huge range of benefits, reduce your stress and sleep better. Here’s a few tips to get you started:
1. Find a method that works for you
So, lots of people out there tend to get a bit confused by all the options when it comes to meditating. Is transcendental better then vipasana. Or would a guided meditation on tape be better than a class where you get in touch with your spirit guide!!!
It’s all a bit confusing, especially if you’ve never done any sort of meditation before, so the best place to start is somewhere that you’re comfortable. If you don’t feel completely comfortable with what you’re doing then, it’s going to limit the benefit that you get.
Have a look around and do a bit of research and see what fits for you. But don’t use this as an excuse not to do anything! The health and psychological benefits of meditation are undeniable so keep in mind that any type will give you most if not all of the benefits that you’re after
2. Make a specific time and place
This is something that many people overlook and it makes a really big difference to your meditation practice. By having a time and a place you make it much easier to develop a habit of doing it daily and you can find a time that is unlikely to be interrupted and a place that you shouldn’t be disturbed. After all not many people can see someone sitting quietly with their eyes closed without coming up and asking what on earth you’re doing!
And it’s not like you need to have a whole room set aside to meditate in (although that’s great if it’s possible) often a good compromise is to have a corner of a generally quiet room and if you have a mat or something like that to meditate on, have it set up there. Even if you can only use the space while you’re actually meditating and can’t stake a claim to it all day, just having a spot makes it easier to meditate and will help to put you in a relaxed state as your mind knows what is going to happen when you sit down here.
A good time to meditate is early in the morning, it’s quiet and there’s not so many interruptions. Also it’s a great way to start your day with a nice calm outlook, making it easier to deal with the stresses of the day. On the other hand, mediation just before going to sleep is a great way to relax and unwind, and drop off in no time. About the only place you really don’t want to have your meditation space is in your lazy boy, in front of the TV – that’s just asking for trouble!
3. Some physical exercise before it
This one isn’t essential but it can really help. If you’ve ever done a yoga session and meditated at the end of it you’ve probably noticed that your mind tends to be much quieter than normal. Part of this effect is simply that you’ve been focusing on your body, not thinking random thoughts. Going for a jog before you meditate can help to give you a greater calm and make a space for your meditation.
4. Don’t get frustrated by an apparent lack of progress
Often we start meditating and it feels great for a little while, but then we feel that we’ve stopped and aren’t moving. This is a very common and normal experience and the trick is to be aware of what it is and that it doesn’t matter. Every time you meditate from the very first time, you’re doing good things. Your mind is stilling and your body is relaxing. Even if you’ve had a horrible day, a session of meditation will do wonders for you.
Progress in terms of calming your mind and spiritual awakening is a subtle process and often has plateaus followed by bursts of rapid unfolding. IT seems like the work is often happening far below the level of your awareness and then a great bubble just pops up and you realize that the consistent effort has been paying enormous dividends even if you weren’t aware of it
5. Utilize technology with binaural audios
Now many purists would have an issue with bringing technology into something as low tech as meditation, but each to his own I say. Why not take advantage of the availability of advanced brainwave research to combat the onslaught of stressful situations that are also present in our every day lives. The world has changed and we can’t all spend our lives as a hermit and spend 5 hours a day meditating. Although this would be great, few people have the slightest chance of doing that in our modern world.
So if you can only spend half an hour in the evening after the kids are in bed, wouldn’t it make sense to get the most that you possibly can out of that time? And a little trick that has been researched and is obvious from personal experience is that when you use these technologies, your unassisted meditations are improved!
The brain gets used to a being at a certain level of activity and when you are mediating in the normal sense it is easier to reach a state of deep meditation if you’ve been at that level before. So apart from philosophical arguments, there’s no denying that using binaural audio’s to give you a deeper meditative experience has no real down sides at all
Settling your mind with meditation is an incredibly effective way to sleep better. Stop the thoughts that keep you awake at night and find peace in your everyday life. I hope these tips help you sleep soundly from now on.
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.