What is Brainwave Entrainment?

If you are wondering what this rather strange sounding thing called "brainwave entrainment" is this page will help to shed some light on it. In fact brainwave entrainment is quite simple, apart from its name, we encounter it naturally every day without having to think about it.

What Happens When You Sleep?

There are several stages in the sleep cycle which repeat throughout the night. As we drift off to sleep our brainwaves begin to slow down into what is known as alpha waves. This is a gently relaxed state, similar to the state you are in when you drift off in your thoughts and are 'miles away'. It is also the state that you are in during meditation.

Normally when we are in bed and ready to sleep we drift into a relaxed alpha brain wave state. Then gradually, these waves become slower and slower, until at the deepest stage of sleep they are known as delta waves.

Delta is the stage which we need to reach in order to have a really deep refreshing sleep and wake feeling refreshed. The whole cycle from alpha wave to delta wave is important for our health and wellbeing.

Brain waves are electrical pulsations that have a natural rhythm which can be captured and shown on an EEG. This is what the various patterns captured during relaxation and sleep look like.

How Sleep Sound Can Help You To Sleep

The Sleep Sound CDs are specially constructed to induce the natural brainwave patterns of sleep. The beat or tones embedded in the background music are there because the brain's pulses or waves will synchronize with them and in doing so will allow you to fall asleep naturally as you listen. The entrainment technology is embedded in soothing music and nature sounds.

As your brainwaves slow down and adopt the patterns of sleep you fall asleep quite naturally and easily. Your brain follows the tones guiding you into a deep natural sleep.

When you play 'Go To Sleep' or 'Sleep Sound' your brainwaves will begin to produce the natural patterns of sleep.

Brainwave Entrainment 

The brain uses electrical signals to communicate with all the systems in your body. The rate of these electrical pulses, or brainwaves, can be measured using an EEG (electroencephalograph) machine. Brainwaves vary in their rhythm depending on what we are doing.

When we are alert and busy the activity in our brains is fast and the waves are closer together. When we are relaxed the wave pattern is much slower. As we begin to go to sleep, the brain waves become slower still.

If you can't sleep your brain waves are most likely not slowing down enough. If you have a busy mind and can't stop thinking, then you are not relaxing. Your brain waves will keep on going fast in the same way as they do when you are busy during the day.

This is an EEG reading of brainwave patterns:

Using Brainwaves To Beat Insomnia

Research has demonstrated that specially constructed sounds or pulsed light can change the rate at which brain waves pulse.

This response in the brain has been mapped using EEG. If you take a look at the image below you will see change happening over 6 minutes as the subject is exposed to brainwave entrainment sounds.

When your brainwaves slow down, your heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, respiration rate and muscle tension all slow down too. This process is used in the Sleep Sound Program to send you to sleep. Embedded in the music is a beat or tone that entrains your brain waves to slow down and to pulse at the natural rate of sleep.

The idea is to get the brain waves to slow right down to alpha and then slower still to theta and then delta waves. As you listen to this you drift gently into a natural sleep.

Scientific Research On Brainwave Entrainment

The process of brainwave entrainment is backed by a mountain of scientific research which has been conducted over the past 70 years. Much has been discovered since the initial work in the 1930s and work continues today. Let me quote from just one of the scientists working in the field:

"Its difficult to try to responsibly convey some sense of excitement about what is going on...the field is wild and intriguing... We are at a frontier, and its a terribly exciting time to be in this line of work" John Kiebeskind, UCLA neurophysiologist.

History Of Brainwave Entrainment

That brain waves could be "entrained", that is synchronized with an external stimulus, was first discovered in the 1930s. At first researchers used flickering light to induce entrainment. Later they found that sound could also be used very effectively.

By the 1960s entrainment was being studied for its use in various therapeutic circumstances. One of these was in helping to calm patients undergoing surgery. The patient's brain waves were entrained to produce slower waves and this resulted in them being less anxious. The calmer a patient is about surgery the less bleeding, gagging, and pain is endured.

Studies have continued until the present day, each new study shedding more light on the process and its uses. Entrainment is now known to be useful in treating many problems. These include ADD, chronic pain, depression, headache, PMS and, of more interest to us, insomnia.

The Beats Used To Entrain The Brain

In 1972 a landmark paper was published in Scientific American by Dr.Gerard Oster on the potential uses of binaural beats and monaural beats (a single tone or beat) and noting that monaural beats were more effective at producing entrainment than binaural beats.

Another notable study by Dr. Arturo Mans in 1981 showed that isochronic beats were able to produce brain wave entrainment much more strongly than either binaural or monaural beats.

Why then is brain wave entrainment not more widely known and prescribed? After all it can be used very cheaply at home. Maybe that is where the answer lies. Cheap home remedies do not make anyone much money.

Drug companies are the major researchers and research funders. They are not going to sink millions into something that will not provide them with a return on their investment. Drug company reps educate doctors on the latest sleeping pills so its natural that these are what doctors tend to prescribe.

Purchase mp3 Downloads