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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To weed through all the sleep deprivation cures which are available out there can be overwhelming. What has to be the worst among these, is sleeping pills – chemically inducing the brain to sleep is bad enough, but it can also be addictive, especially when you consider that such medications usually fail in their effectiveness after about one or two months of use. The side effects of these alone are nothing but trouble.
There are also other attempts at cures for sleep deprivation such as hypnosis, or subliminal messages in audio tracks. Subliminal messaging actually does nearly nothing, at least to this end, and hypnosis can cost a pretty penny, with sequential sessions lasting months. The best methods with the highest reported success rates are those which use sound (with nothing subliminal) in order to stimulate the brain into producing the specific brainwave activities which are most conducive to sleep.
It would seem that the most effective was a technique called binaural therapy, using two very slightly different frequencies through stereo headphones. These slightly out-of-sync frequencies would find a middle ground so to speak, when the brain processed the information, resulting in the production of certain brainwaves such as alpha, beta and theta waves, inducing sleep.
The only drawback seemed to be the need to use stereo headphones – try sleeping with headphones on without knocking them off or having them wake you up. Fortunately, isochronic pulses and tones are the most recent development, not requiring any stereo headphones, using just a regular CD player. Using isochronic pulses and tones to develop healthy sleep patterns is the best of all sleep deprivation cures.
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.