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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Women ages 45 to 64, the baby boomer generation, are faced with stressors that none of the previous generations were ever faced with. We are the first generation that may not live as long as our parents.
A parent’s worse night mare is that their child may die before they do. We just might make that happen if we don’t change something.
We’re stuck in between.
Between our aging parents and even grandparents, and our kids, we manage careers, households, our sexuality (menopause is… the b word), divorces, and marriages.
Our mentality is fueled with a fifty year old premise that we must be perfect in everything we do.
We have to do it all, like we’re some kind of superhero with super powers. We put aside our needs for the betterment of all concerned…except ourselves.
We’ll get around to us, when there’s time, but there’s never time.
Our parents are getting old and need extra attention. They’re forgetting things, and if the truth be known, we are too. Stress does that. It messes up your ability to remember and retrieve thoughts.
Mom and Dad are as needy as our kids were when they were toddlers. Yes, some of us have to change our parent’s paper underwear…and make sure they eat, and wash themselves and not wander the neighborhood. And we have to fit that in, several times a day and still do our job and drive the kids to school and pick them up and make supper and do the wash….and maybe shave our legs if we remembered to buy razors.
We’re getting heavy around the middle, we eat garbage-on-the-run, we struggle with addictions that range from drugs to chocolate covered nachos.
Our bodies and minds are in a constant state of flight or fight.
Incredible levels of cortisol, a natural stress hormone our body produces when we’re out of control with stress, are coursing through our veins, wreaking havoc wherever it touches.
The Effects Of Stress and Cortisol
Suppresses our immune system.
Inhibits the production of natural killer cells that take out cancer and viruses.
Can accelerate the growth of any active cancer cells that we may have in our body.
Is responsible for conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease, and fibromyalgia.
Can hamper your resistance to viruses, colds, and flu bugs.
Collects fat around your abdomen, contributing to heart disease, high blood pressure, impaired cognitive abilities, and high cholesterol.
Actually enlarges the fat cells in that tummy fat.
Interferes with blood glucose metabolism…may give you diabetes or hypoglycemia.
Suppresses your thyroid, slowing down your metabolism and making you puffy eyed and tired…and not sexual in the least.
Causes short-term memory loss.
Is the primary cause of osteoporosis…messes with bone formation.
Causes the production of excessive gastric acid and GERD.
And gives you, adding insult to injury, wrinkles, and fallen structural support in the muscles, tendons, joints and skin.
Brainwave entrainment is a powerful technology that uses sound and/or visual pulses, in repeated rhythmic patterns to change a person’s state of mind. Because of the frequency following response principle, the brain will entrain or mimic a repeated pattern and mimic that dominant brainwave.
Entrainment can quickly and effectively take you out of the stress brainwave and put you into a relaxed state of mind, reversing the effects of cortisol, and healing you with feel good hormones like serotonin and oxycontin.
It’s time we took at least thirty minutes for ourselves.
It’s time for a “me” break.
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.