Help Yourself Get a “Sound Sleep” With Brain Entrainment

Brain entrainment is the newest development in the area of sleep disorders and sleep aids. As more and more people struggle with insomnia and other sleep related problems, there is an increasing need for ways to help beat stress and allow the mind and body to relax. One of the more exciting methods is the use of binaural beats to train the brainwaves into a meditative state.

What exactly is brainwave entrainment? Well, it’s exactly what it sounds like… training the brainwaves to change to a different frequency and induce different states of alertness or relaxation. The brain operates on a number of different frequencies throughout the day, from gamma and beta while you are awake and alert to theta and delta as you move through the various stages of sleep.

It has been found that introducing minimally differing frequencies in each ear through the use of headphones can produce a single frequency in the brain which represents the difference between the two. For instance, if you were to listen to a 420 Hz frequency in the left ear and a 430 Hz frequency in the right ear, the brain would combine the two in to a single 10Hz frequency. This is the principle behind binaural beats, one of the simplest and easiest forms of brain entrainment.

And what does this kind of brainwave entrainment actually achieve? For those individuals who have difficulty shutting down and relaxing at the end of the day, it can work very similarly to traditional meditation techniques and ease you into a state of calmness.

Often, binaural beats will be combined with calming sounds such as gentle music or natural sounds like rainfall or waves crashing, in order to further enhance the feeling of relaxation (such as with the SleepTracks program).

While brain entrainment is still considered something of a controversial subject in the medical community, it is a known fact that different frequencies can directly affect your state of mind. As a result, it is not really a stretch to consider that changing those frequencies can help alter your mental state. If you have difficulty naturally processing the stress of everyday life, this kind of method might be very useful in helping you to relax.

This is actually the same basic method used in traditional meditation. By focusing on a particular word and repeating it over and over in the same tone, practitioners of meditation can achieve a form of natural brainwave entrainment, helping to ease themselves from gamma and beta to theta and delta levels. They often further enhance the experience by imagining themselves in someplace calm, like a quiet beach or a peaceful forest. The combination of sound and visual stimulus can work together to alter the brain’s state.

These brain entrainment techniques do offer an appealing alternative to the use of sleeping pills. Unlike external sedatives, binaural beats and other entrainment methods do not have side effects and there is no danger of becoming addicted. For individuals who have not had success with standard sleep aids or simply don’t like the idea of using them, entrainment can be a viable choice.

SleepTracks is one of the most popular brainwave entrainment programs available. You can take a short quiz and watch a video to learn more about using this technique on the SleepTracks website.

Nobody likes to deal with sleep disorders and the far ranging effect they can have on your everyday life. If you are one of the thousands of people who suffer from insomnia or other sleep issues, consider using entrainment to help naturally ease stress and help your mind relax. There is no need to rely on drugs when you can get your brain working for you with simple, easy and safe meditative techniques. Don’t lose any more sleep, train your brain to help you relax!