Brainwaves & Entrainment

We live in a vibrational universe.

Lately, I've been researching the relationship between brainwaves, vibration, and sound.

If everything in the universe is vibration, then one lens to view health and vitality, could be to say that you are vibrating at an optimal specific rate, or frequency. When you become stressed, sick, or feel out of balance, this may be linked to a change in your frequency.

Our bones, heart, organs, cells, are all vibrating. This vibration produces a sound, even if the human ear cannot hear it. It makes sense then that if we are all vibrating with sound, we can use sound to promote health in our lives.

If you're a regular participant in sound baths, you might start to wonder how and why the effects of being immersed in sound can induce such a profound state of relaxation.

There are different lenses through which we can view the effects of sound frequencies on mind, body and spirit. This post focuses on the aspects of brainwaves and entrainment through physiological response. It is this response that can open up the gateway to altered states of consciousness and, in my personal belief, a whole host of spiritual and mental benefits.

Firstly, let's explore brain wave entrainment.

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What does brainwave entrainment mean?

The simplest way to understand brainwave entrainment is the vibration of one object affecting another object. For example, if you put some pendulums in close proximity in a room, the will begin to oscillate in harmony.

In a sound bath, by synchronizing different sound pulses, we can entrain the brainwave frequencies to mimic the same frequencies and induce altered states of consciousness. The most common goal of brainwave entrainment is to produce alpha waves, as they are linked to feelings of relaxation.

Brain wave entrainment helps the brain do what the brain naturally does anyway – to synchronize to an external stimulus.

What are the range of brainwave frequencies?

There are five main brain wave frequencies, and each correlates with a specific state of consciousness. Beta brainwave states are the ones we tend to experience most in modern day life.

• Delta (1-4Hz) - deep sleep, deep repair, and revitalization.

• Theta (4-8Hz) - twilight state, trance, deep meditation.

• Alpha (8-13Hz) - in the zone, high information processing, problem solving.

• Beta (13-32Hz) - task completion, heightened alertness, motivation, stress.

• Gamma (30-100Hz) - shamanic states, profound insight and deep integration.

Sound and brainwaves

Sound meditation can be an effective tool to help regulate and control your brain waves for better health, higher performance, and an overall more positive experience of life. During a sound bath, our brains can be entrained by the sound vibrations produced by gongs, bells, chimes, and bowls.

These therapeutic instruments, when used skillfully, and when received with intention, can entrain the brainwaves of sound bath participants into the theta range. In this state we experience creativity, insight, deep meditation, release of mental tension, and perhaps even as reporting by some, altered states of consciousness and mystical trance.

Binaural beats

I follow an intuitive and intentional process to selecting and expanding the instruments I used in sound meditation. Where possible, I try to select instruments that work in harmony from both a sound perspective, but also in the creation of binaural beats on the participant.

Binaural beats need a whole blog post of their own to do them justice, but for now, a simplified way to understand them is as a tone created in the brain when it's presented with two different frequencies at the same time.

For example, if a 200 Hz sound frequency is sent to the left ear, and a 205 Hz to the right ear, the brain will process those two frequencies and perceive a new frequency at 5 Hz which is in the Theta range, associated with deep meditation.

This is why experiencing binaural beats during a sound meditation can be a powerful, safe, and natural way to alter your brainwave state and activate your body's natural healing processes.

If there was ever a motivation to continue your sound meditation practice, whatever form it take, this is it!

I hope you took something away from this blog. Please like, share, or leave a comment in the box.

With love,

Rose

Disclaimer: information in this article is not intended as medical advice. You must always seek advice from a licensed physician before engaging in any holistic health interventions.