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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Success in the Information Age depends on the integration of information and communication technologies. As individuals begin to accept and understand their usefulness, people become creative in reshaping their lives.
Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) are a powerful yet neutral tool that can be used to address a host of issues. One of this is brain training. Truly, the real power of ICT lies in their ability to support holistic development that promotes long-term benefits. The value of ICT increases as its number of users grows. By participating in this Information Age, we not only add value to the rest of the world, but also benefit from the ability to use the technology to communicate and trade with other users.
In this article, I will be sharing with you ICT tools that will help you in your brain training exercises. As follows:
1. Brain Training Online Games offer increase in their level of complexity. As new and more games surface, they provide more novelty; thus, the creation of brain neurons.
Competition keeps us motivated to keep going after higher scores. Online games allow you to compare your scores with other players.
2. Brainwave Entrainment is said to help synchronize the two hemispheres of the brain. This process refers to the brain’s electrical response to rhythmic sensory stimulation, in the form of sound or light.
3. There are Brain Fitness software in the market believed to help people to remain mentally sharp.
4. Biofeedback Therapy is a regimen that is popular with athletes. For one, this therapy reduces recovery time after injury. But, this is not limited to athletes, this can be adopted by everybody.
Biofeedback Therapy is reading your own body and knowing how your body works. This is aimed at personal improvement by knowing how to correct one’s brainwave patterns. This is usually started by having the person play a video game using the person’s brainwaves.
Training the brain, more so by using ICT tools, is believed to have these effects:
o Increase in IQ
o Improvement in focus and concentration
o Clear and quick thinking
o Alertness and awareness
o Creation of profitable ideas
o Improvement of relationships
Once we achieve those benefits, success and wealth is never far behind!
If information and communication technologies are used effectively like the above tools, they can help to create a trained, educated and healthy workforce that can build a vibrant and successful economy.
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.