Healing & Meditating with Binaural Beats
WHAT ARE BINAURAL BEATS?
Many ancient cultures were aware of how sound repetition could be used to train and stimulate our brains, and there are many historic examples of music being used as medicine & therapy, such as the Native Americans and Africans using singing and chanting for healing rituals. Amazingly, even some languages exhibit a connection between healing & music - such as traditional Chinese, where the character for medicine includes the character for music!
Today, modern science also shows us how binaural beats can produce an effect on the train like that of meditation. Binaural beats are sounds in which the right and left ears listen to two slightly different frequency tones, however they may perceive the tone as one (the conscious brain will not detect the difference). Researchers believe that these beats help trigger subtle changes in the brain depending on which frequency pattern they employ:
Delta patterns (frequency between 0.1 & 4 Hz, associated with dreamless sleep)
Theta patterns (between 4 & 8 Hz, associated with sleep in the rapid eye movement or REM phase, meditation, and creativity)
Alpha pattern (between 8 & 13 Hz, encourage relaxation)
Beta pattern (between 14 Hz and 100 Hz, promotes concentration & alertness)
HOW DO BINAURAL BEATS WORK?
Our brainwaves change in speed, depending based on what we’re experiencing in life. When we’re resting, our brain enters a slow Theta state. When we’re running errands or working, our brain enters a faster Beta state. We cannot naturally control of our brainwave states, but binaural beats can help brainwaves shift into optimal states.As we mentioned above, binaural beats play one specific tone in one ear and a slightly different tone in the other, and the difference between them causes an audio phenomenon called Beating, which is designed to vibrate at the same speed as the desired brainwaves (for whichever purpose). Then, our brain tries to make up the difference in beating tones by taking the form of the desired brainwave state.Potential benefits of listening to Binaural Beats include:stress reliefanxiety reliefincreased focusimproved concentrationincreased motivationmore confidencedeeper meditation& improved mood
Some recommend that listening or meditating to binaural beats should be a regular part of your practice, for 15-30 minutes per day. Practitioners share testimonials such as
“My mind has become clearer and I feel more focused. These beautiful tools gave my meditation a depth and calm that I had not experienced before.”
“These binaural beats transport me to a mind bubble where all of my thoughts are sharp and have clarity.”