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.
8 hour sleep music | isochronic beats
This article is the second part of a previous one of the same title – How Can Theta Waves of Brain Entrainment Change Your Life (I). I’ll try to explain what brain entrainment is, how theta waves are generated as well as what makes a good brain entrainment product.
How to Generate Theta Waves
As mentioned the first article, some people manage to generate brain waves through practice of meditation and self-hypnosis. It is worthwhile but these techniques require lots of time and patience to master. For the average busy resident of the modern city, a more direct, time-effective way is desirable. Here we introduce an alternative that anyone can use to experience the benefits of theta waves much more easily – brainwave entrainment.
‘Brain Entrainment’ is a technology which involves a change in the brain’s electrical activity to match a pattern of sound or light stimulation. In our case, the target activity is theta waves. To achieve this purpose, people usually use binaural beats, isochronic tones, monaural beats, or sometimes a mind-machine. Among these, sound stimulation has been proved to be more effective than light stimulation.
While listening to a brain entrainment recording, your brain will naturally start to match – or entrain to – the frequency of the sounds it is hearing. So if the recording contains sounds designed to induce theta waves, your brain would start to produce these waves as you listen. This is much easier than trying to access and maintain the theta mental state by yourself.
How to Choose a Reliable Theta Waves Product
Among the three types of sound-based brain entrainment recordings: binaural beats, monaural beats and isochronic tones, it doesn’t matter which to choose since all of them work well with theta frequency. Some people believe that isochronic tones have an edge over the other types as they’re more powerful in entraining the brain. However, other people have also found that they’re not as effective with the lower frequencies like delta.
When it comes to choosing the type of theta waves recordings that best suits you, consider the following factors:
A wide range of products – How many types of recordings are offered? Do they cover delta, theta and alpha waves? Can you readily find one that caters well for your personal needs?
Free samples – Does the store offer free samples for the customer to listen to before deciding which type to buy?
Sound quality – How are the recordings produced? Is the sound quality good enough for the recordings to be burned into CDs or converted to friendly formats?
Risk free guarantee – Does the site offer money back guarantees? How long is the guarantee period?
Listening instructions – Are listening instructions provided? Are they concise and clear?
In short, a product that fulfills the above criteria is worthy of your trust and consideration. Personally, I recommend The Unexplainable Store, a well-established and prestigious supplier of brainwave entrainment products. Their theta waves and other recordings come in both MP3 and CD formats and they offer an 8-week risk free guarantee. You can listen to samples of binaural beats and isochronic tones to choose the one that suits you most.
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.