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.
guided chakra meditation | theta sleep
Throughout the thousands of years after Enlightenment, man has realised that the power of thought and intellect are powers beyond anything that the physical can bestow. A man may be strong but a man with a powerful mind may yet outwit him. Take that rhetoric and fast forward it to the current century and you have another idea – unleash the power of the mind through concentration and entrainment. All your goals and successes can be reached once you figure out how to be smarter, faster and happier at all times.
The brain box atop your head is primary in controlling everything about you; using electrical impulses and the release of chemical reactions within the cerebrum to determine your daily physical and emotional functions. Now, the brain releases frequencies called brain waves that determine how well you do something and what you are capable of during your different states of wakefulness, sleep and near sleep. Scientists range them from the alpha waves all the way to the theta waves. Each of them are represented by frequency ranges that can go as low as below 1Hz and as high as 38Hz. They have been linked to states of heightened mental abilities, mental focus, relaxation, stress relief, super learning abilities and even patterns that are ideal for healing.
Now imagine if you can focus this power and call upon it any time you want. Brainwave entrainment is just that, using scientific or more traditional methods to relax the mind and trigger the brain to give off exact electromagnetic frequencies. Have a big exam the next day and can’t seem to remember anything? Then call upon the alpha waves that is familiar to the brain just before or after sleep and you can activate your super learning capabilities.
Is stress raising your blood pressure to unacceptable levels and you need to find your place of Zen and total relaxation? Then find a quiet place and call upon the exact wave frequencies in your cortical (in the brain) and put yourself into a deep trancelike state where the body heals and relaxes. Got a big project and need to inject some creativity into your campaign? Well there are always the low theta waves to help you with your creative visualisation.
The amount of research done into this area of personal development and mental focus and release is gargantuan and the effects simply Olympian. Technology like magnetic fields given off by specially made machines or even binaural beats; engineered sound frequencies delivered into the lobe of the brain to invoke a specific pattern response – are just some of the examples of what you can use to get the benefits of brain entrainment. Already far afield in the medical industry and used to treat general illnesses, make healing faster and improve conditions that afflict the mind, imagine what you can do with this application for the purpose of self improvement. Don’t wait, unleash the power of the mind with entrainment and live a better and brighter life.
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.