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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Focus on this. Our scattered minds, I’ve read somewhere, process something in the region of fifty thousand thoughts every day. That’s fairly spread out and assuming a waking day of sixteen hours, makes on average, in the region of three thousand one hundred and twenty five thoughts every hour.
We may think we are focussed when we watch television for example, because the passive act of watching sends our brainwaves into an alpha state. But this is not always so. Since the alpha state is conducive to absorbing huge amounts of information subconsciously the media quite understandably makes good use of this to bombard us with intermittent advertisements, shattering our concentration and sending our thoughts in all directions.
Most of us cannot focus unaided, on one thing for more than three minutes. Similarly it is impossible to focus fully on more than one thing at a time. Try these two simple exercises to see how good your focus is.
Clear the table and place one small item such as a pen or an apple in front of you. Concentrate solely on that item and time yourself. Notice how long it took for an unrelated thought to creep in.
Then double the items, for instance two pens or two apples placed closely side by side. Concentrate your focus first on one, then the other. Then attempt to focus fully on both items and you will see you cannot maintain the sharp engaged clarity on both at the same time because now your attention is divided, even though the items are very close together.
This of course is the reason why visualization doesn’t work for so many people and they give up. The human brain can be reprogrammed in three to four weeks, depending on the individual. but razor sharp focus is needed for at least fifteen minutes each day.
Our busy focus is the reason we seem to experience such zig-zag lives: up one day and down the next forever at the mercy of our never ending thoughts.
Luckily mind machines are available for those wishing to experience the total stillness of going ‘within’, reclaiming control of the thought process and engaging their focus on the destiny they want….. but that, as they say, is another story.
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.