Understanding Brainwave Entrainment
 

Brainwave Entrainment or Brainwave Stimulation is a sound technology that we use to create Brain Activation CD. This article will explain to you what  Brainwave Entrainment is, its history, and how it works to activate your brain.

What is Brainwave?

Your brain consists of billion cells called neurons. Each neuron communicates (connect) with each other by emitting electric impulses. This electric impulse is called "brainwave". Thus, what is called by brainwave is the "electric current" released by the brain. If the brain no longer produce brainwaves,  it means that the brain has already dead.

We can measure our brainwaves using electroencephalograph (EEG) machine. It is known that the frequency of brainwaves generated by neurons varied between 0-30 Hz and classified into Delta, Theta, Alpha and Beta waves. Each wave has different characteristics and indicates a person's mental condition.

Here is a brief description on the characteristics of the four types of brainwaves generally appear in human's brain.

Beta Wave: Alert, Concentration.
Beta brainwave (13-30 Hz) keeps our mind sharp and focused. In the Beta state, your brain analyze and prepare information, make connections, and generate solutions and new ideas easily. Beta wave is very beneficial for working productivity, people who are studying for exams, preparing presentations, or other activities that require high concentration and alertness.

Alpha Wave: creativity, Relaxation, Visualization
Alpha brainwave (8-13 Hz) is in stark contrast compared to Beta brainwave. Relaxed condition encourages the flow of creative energy and feeling of freshness, health. Alpha state is ideal for reflection, problem solving, and visualization. It acts as the gateway to our creativity.

Theta Wave: Deep Relaxation, Meditation, Increase In Memory
Slower than Beta, Theta brainwave (4-8 Hz) appears when we dream in a light sleep and often called as having a conscious dream. Theta frequency is associated with the release of stress and the recalling of the long lost memory. This "twilight" state can be used to go into a deeper meditation, improving overall health, overcoming lack of sleep, and increasing creativity as well as learning.

Delta Wave: Healing, Deep Sleep.
Delta state (0.5-4 Hz), is achieved when the brainwaves getting slower, often associated with someone who is having a deep sleep. Some frequencies in the range of Delta accompany the release of human growth hormone, which is beneficial for healing. Delta state, if produced in the waking state, allows us to access the subconscious activity and pushing its flow into the conscious mind. Delta state is often associated with people with a strong sense of empathy and intuition.

People often mistaken to think that brain only produces one type of brainwaves at a point of time. When we actively think, we are in Beta state. When we relax, we are in Alpha. when we are daydreaming, we are in Theta. And, when we are in a deep sleep, we are in Delta. This view is wrong. Researches showed that in general, our brain produces four types of wave simultaneously at a point of time, but in different levels. For example, when we are asleep, our brains produce more Delta waves, and still produce Theta, Alpha and Beta in the lower level.

Every person has a unique and consistent pattern of brainwaves. The uniqueness is shown in the composition of the type of the wave at a given time. The composition of brainwaves determines a person's level of consciousness. Meditation is one of the most ancient way to regulate the brainwaves pattern. As for the busy modern society, Brainwave Entrainment technology becomes one favorite way to regulate brainwaves pattern to suit your needs.

Actually, in addition to the four types of brainwaves that we mentioned above (Delta, Theta, Alpha and Beta), there are still some higher brainwaves. Those are Gamma wave (40-99 Hz), HyperGamma wave (100 Hz), and Lambda wave (200 Hz). According to Dr. Jeffrey D. Thompson, from the Center for Acoustic Research, HyperGamma and Lambda waves are associated with the supranatural, metaphysical, or paranormal abilities.

Meanwhile, Gamma wave occurs when a person is experiencing extremely high mental activity, for example, when a person is struggling in a tournament, performing in front of public, very frantic, frightened, hurried by deadline or other circumstances that are very stressful for the person.
 

What Is Brainwave Entrainment?

Your brainwaves pattern determines your mental state. Whether you're passionate, energetic, productive, creative, fun or being lazy, sad, stressful, anxious, having difficulty in concentrating or depressed, all of them are influenced by the pattern of brainwaves released by the nerves on your brain. Brainwave entrainment is a way to regulate your brainwaves pattern as needed, to gain the state of mind that you want.

Brainwave Entrainment is also known as brainwave synchronization or brainwave stimulation. In Indonesia, Brainwave Entrainment is known as Terapi Gelombang Otak, Stimulasi Gelombang Otak or Sinkronisasi Gelombang Otak. In this article, we use the term Brainwave Entrainment as the term is more universal.

Brainwave Entrainment is defined as an attempt to stimulate the brain to produce specific brainwaves pattern/frequency as needed. The stimulation can be done using sound waves or flashes of lights. Of the two ways, stimulation using sound waves is more popular and considered as more effective, cheaper and easier to apply.

The phenomenon of "entrainment" was first discovered in 1665 by a Dutch scientist named Christian Huygens. He had a room that contained several pendulum clocks (antique clock with a pendulum as its driver). As he observed, the motion of the pendulums between one clock and the others was becoming harmonic from time to time. Whereas, at first the movement of the pendulums were inharmonic.

Christian Huygens repeated his experiment for several times. He began by moving one pendulum after another, and yet, the result was always the same: after a while, all the pendulums were synchronized each other. Huygens, then, refer to this phenomenon as "entrainment". As for Brainwave Entrainment, it had just emerged in 1839. it was started with the discovery of Binaural Beats by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove.

In the world of mind technology, this is known as "frequency following response," which is a natural phenomenon of the human brain. Frequency Following Response is a condition in which the brain tends to adjust its frequency to the frequency of sound or light stimuli received by the brain through the ears or eyes.

To end this article, we want you to understand one thing, that each frequency has its own effects on the body and mind. For example, brainwaves with the frequencies of 6 Hz and 7.83 Hz are both categorized as theta waves, yet, have very different effects on the brain.

In the world of Brainwave Entrainment, we also know the term Brainwave Pattern. Brainwave pattern is a composition of different frequencies of brainwaves that occur in a person's brain. Brainwave pattern determines a person's mental condition. There are patterns of brainwaves to sleep, dream, spirit and joy, and there are also patterns of brainwaves to ADHD, depression, OCD, and so on. All of them can be measured and observed using EEG machine as shown below.

INFORMATION: You can also measure your brainwave using our EEG Brain Mapping machine. For further information, please check www.brainmusictherapy.com

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