Don't Take Sleeping Pills: Binaural Beats are a Better Alternative for Sleep

How well you slept last night will affect how you feel today. Sleeping is one of the most important factors in living a healthy lifestyle.

Many people don’t take sleeping seriously, and those same people always complain why they always feel so tired and out of energy.

There are people out there who find it very difficult to fall asleep, and I am sure you have tried all kinds of products that did not work for you. I myself also had a sleeping problem. I could not clear my mind before bed, so it caused me to have many sleepless nights. Now when I use Binaural Beats it truly clears up my mind and relaxes my body.

The way Binaural Beats helps is by adjusting the brains frequencies to promote healthy sleeping patterns. You will feel the difference the first night you try it. So quit taking sleeping pills - They Are Not Healthy For You - Binaural Beats is a way better alternative because it is safe and it delivers results.

What are Binaural Beats?

“Binaural Beats” is the name given to the perception of a warbling sound when two frequencies are played simultaneously, one in each ear.

Discovered by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove in 1839, binaural beats rose to greater notoriety in the early 1970s when physicist Thomas Warren Campbell began researching claims that binaural beats are able to induce beneficial mental states, such as deep meditation.

Results of this research proved that, indeed, the brain would entrain itself to the frequency equal to the difference between the two frequencies played. So if a subject listened to a 210 hertz tone in one ear and a 214 hertz tone in the other, the 4 hertz difference is the perceived “beat” that the brain, after listening for a while, will match itself to.

Further experimentation showed that the difference between the two frequencies must be relatively small – under 30 hertz – for it to be perceived as a “beat”; frequencies with a greater difference are perceived separately.

Using binaural beats in various mental states while being recorded by an EEG (encepl…blahFIX) allowed researchers to further delineate the different wavelengths the human mind generates for different states of being.

The categories are generally agreed upon as (from most to least “active” states): Gamma (extreme emotions or intense concentration), Beta (active thinking, concentration, anxiety, arousal), Alpha (drowsy, falling-asleep feeling, sometimes also general relaxation), Theta (dreaming sleep or deep meditation), and Delta (deep, dreamless sleep), but the wavelengths at which each occurs are not set in stone, though they generally run as over 40 hertz for Gamma, 13 to 29 for Beta, 7 to 13 for Alpha, 4 to 7 for Theta, and under 4 hertz for Delta.

Research done under Gerald Oster suggested that binaural beats may be used as a medical tool, especially for diagnosing neurological conditions. In particular, he noticed that untreated sufferers of Parkinson’s disease were unable to “hear” binaural beats but further research indicated successful treatment when the subject was finally able to perceive them at the end of a Parkinson’s treatment regimen.

Oster also noted the difference in perception in women based on their menstrual cycle and posited that there may be some connection between the ability to perceive binaural beats and the woman’s levels of estrogen at the time.

Further research in the mid-1990s examined claims that binaural beats can provide the listener with an experience akin to that of taking recreational drugs, stop them from smoking, help them lose weight, and other similar claims (often referred to under the umbrella term “brainwave entertainment”).

Unfortunately, at this time, science has not been able to definitively prove that these claims are true, although there is, in some cases, powerful anecdotal evidence suggesting that for some individuals, these beneficial effects are very much a reality.

One problem with researching binaural beats is that listening to them does not guarantee brain entrainment. Although a determined listener should be able to focus on the beats enough to relax and let his or her brain match the binaural beat wavelength, sometimes, and for some people, it just won’t happen.

Also, some claims, such as astral travel, are not scientifically measurable at this time, and so are unverifiable in scientific studies. However, there are several studies that suggest that a meditative state is more easily attained when listening to binaural beats, suggesting that other such states may well be achievable too.

A newer alternative to binaural beats is isochromatic tones. These are tones that are interspersed with periods of brief silence, creating a similar effect to binaural beats but without the two frequencies playing in different ears. Because isochromatic tones do not need headphones, they are gaining popularity as the newest method of brainwave entertainment.

Binaural Beats and Lucid Dreaming

Have you ever had a dream where you realized you were dreaming and then suddenly could control the dream? Many of us have had this experience… once or twice.

The rest of us have heard about it and wished we could do it ourselves. It’s called lucid dreaming, and it can be an incredibly rewarding experience, especially if you can enter that state at will do it more than just the rare time or two. But lucid dreaming on a regular basis is something very few of us can do… on our own.

However, thanks to a type of “brainwave entertainment” call binaural beats, lucid dreaming is no longer a fluke that happens only rarely and only seldom and when you least expect it. By listening to binaural beats, you can train yourself to quickly and easily slip into lucid dreaming, night after night!

Binaural beats are created when two tones are played simultaneously, one in each ear.

As long as the difference between the two frequencies is less than 30 hertz, the brain perceives the difference in the tones as a “beat” which, if listened to with enough focus, the brain will begin to follow (this is known as the “frequency following response”).

By changing the difference between the two beats, the brain will change its wavelength and enter into different “states” of being.

As we start to fall asleep, we naturally pass through the relaxed, drowsy alpha state, dropping into the sleep states of theta and delta. Dreaming occurs in the theta state, but most of the time when we’re asleep in the theta state, we are unconscious and unable to consciously control the dreams we experience.

When we begin to wake up, our dominant brainwaves pass into the lower alpha wavelengths, but usually, as this happens, we wake up out of our dreams.

The key to lucid dreaming is to approach the alpha wavelength, but, before you fully wake up, move back down into the dreaming theta state. This way, your subconscious begins to wake up enough for you to take control of your surroundings, but you’re still asleep enough that those surroundings are a wonderfully malleable dream instead of reality.

A high-quality soundtrack of binaural beats that is expertly designed can gently guide your brain through these states, enabling you to quickly learn to take control of your dreams.

By using binaural beats, your dreams are entirely under your control. In dreams, anything is possible, but instead of relying on the whims of your subconscious, with binaural beats you can control what that anything is. Want to fly like a bird, soaring through the air?

With lucid dreaming, you can do this with ease and without fear. Tired of nightmares making you cowed and fearful? By taking total control over your dreams, you can defeat what terrifies you.

Lucid dreaming doesn’t just mean control over your actions, but also of your setting. Sick of winter? With lucid dreaming, you can take a nice long break on a tropical island every night.

We spend about a third of our lives sleeping. Lucid dreaming takes that time and turns it into a time that we can use to conquer our fears, take a vacation, or experience the physically impossible. And, with a little help from binaural beats, this kind of Dreamtime fun is something you can experience night after night.

Binaural Beats for Sleep and Insomnia

In today’s busy world, many of us have trouble relaxing enough to fall asleep easily when we go to bed. Those who suffer from this sort of insomnia often complain of being unable to “turn the brain off” enough to relax and fall asleep. Sometimes, the more you try to relax, the worse it gets, and hours can tick by as you desperately try to sleep.

===> Sleep Better Now with Binaural Beats <===

Sleeping pills are the most obvious solution, but they can become addictive or have unpleasant side effects, or leave you groggy the next day. Meditation is an obvious natural solution, but once again, if you could calm you brain down on command, you probably wouldn’t be laying awake unable to sleep in the first place.

There is a solution, which, although you may not have heard about it, has been around (and scientifically tested!) for decades now. By using binaural beats, you can ease your brain from its active state into a more restful state simply by listening to a different frequency wavelengths of sound in each ear. Because two different wavelengths are entering through two different entrances (your ears), that difference is perceived as a “beat” (though it may sound like a warble to some) that resonates at the frequency equal to the difference. The brain will entrain (match) itself to the beat produced by the difference in wavelengths. If the difference between the two wavelengths is less than seven hertz, your brain will fall into a state of deep relaxation, also known at the theta range.

In order to take full advantage of binaural beats to tackle insomnia, you should first buy a high-quality recording. Although it’s true that any two tones that have wavelengths that are seven hertz or less fewer apart will create a binaural beat, there are other factors to take into consideration. Many people find the tones that create binaural beats unpleasant, so a good recording will also have a “pink noise” to help mask the sound (falling rain is one popular such noise).; this noise will also help you focus on the binaural beat instead of letting your mind wander.

A good recording will also not immediately start with tones that produce the theta range, but will begin higher up, in the beta range (which is associated with anxiety, but also active concentration and other waking states of being), and gradually move down, through the alpha range (which is the ideal meditative wavelength, but is also associated with falling asleep) before moving into the final, theta, range. If you get a binaural beat that goes directly into the theta range, you might find yourself distracted or unable to sync up as easily.

Once you have a good recording, start listening to your binaural beats while in bed, and try to be sure you’re undisturbed so your brain can sync up. If you have chronic insomnia, be sure to listen on a regular basis so you train yourself to fall asleep at the same time every night. If you like, you can even invest in a pair of comfortable sleep headphones.

With the right recording and regular use, binaural beats may help you join the ranks of regular sleepers to become someone for whom insomnia is a thing of the past.

The Technicalities

To understand binaural beats it will help to have a basic understanding of the different brainwave states called beta, alpha, theta, and delta.

Beta - Throughout the day our brains are in the beta range with a frequency of about 13hz and up. At this level we are active, busy, and all our emotional responses are at this level. People who are over active, or often depressed, irritable, angry etc., often lose out on the recuperation and recharging that takes place when we are relaxed in the alpha, theta, and delta levels.

Alpha - When we begin to relax and begin to get drowsy, but are still awake and conscious (maybe at pre-sleep) we are said to be at the alpha level which is about 7hz-13hz.

Theta - When we dream, or are in deep meditation, we are at the theta level (4hz-7hz).

Delta - During deep dreamless sleep where there is a complete loss of body awareness we are at the delta level (0-4hz).

So where do binaural beats fit into all this?

Binaural beats are not a physical noise or sound per se. Rather binaural beats are a sort of phantom tone which is manufactured by the brain when two different tones are played in each ear. For the binaural beat to be perceived you need stereo headphones and the frequency of the two different tones coming into each ear must be below 1000hz, and no more than 30hz apart. If they are more than 30hz apart you will simply hear a tone in each ear, one louder than the other. But if the difference between the beats is below 30hz you hear the binaural beats.

For example if you play a tone of 200hz in the left ear, and a tone of 190hz in the right ear (with the difference being 10hz) a beating tone will be perceived at 10 hz which is the binaural beat. What ever the difference is between the tones coming into the ears (in this example the difference is 200hz-190hz=10hz) the binaural beat will be that difference.

If you have grasped what has been written thus far then you can easily grasp the concept of binaural beats.

It has been scientifically verified that if you consistently listen to binaural beats, for example, that are beating between 7hz-13hz, your brain will naturally tune in to that hz level and bring you to the alpha level (which as mentioned at the beginning is roughly between 7hz-13hz). This is called frequency following response or brainwave entrainment*. Taking it a step further, if you listen to binaural beats that are between 4hz-7hz your brain will adjust to the theta level, and you may experience deep meditation, or lucid dreaming (dreaming while conscious), or even astral projection (when you listen to the binaural beats daily, giving your brain time to build new neuro pathways). By listening to binaural beats that are below 4z you may totally zone out and lose all body awareness as you plung into the delta level. Or, to improve memory, binaural beats are made at about the 16hz-24hz range (well into the beta range). And so on and so forth.

Binaural beats by themselves are dull for some people to listen to. But with nature sounds or ambient music, as well as either white noise, pink noise, brown noise, mixed in with the binaural beats it is more pleasant to listen to longterm. Normally it will take about 6 minutes for the brain to start becoming entrained by the binaural beats. But it is best to listen to binaural beat recordings daily that are any where between 10 minutes to an hour long.

Binaural Beats and Monaural Beats

Over the centuries people have discovered that repetitious rhythms such as the beating of a drum at a single tone, or chanting, or other methods for producing a single, repetitious rhythm, have been known to produce certain states of consciousness whether deep relaxation, trance, a state of meditation and so on. The rhythms used basically changed the brainwave state of the person listening as long as that person remains open and receptive to the rhythms.

Fast forward to the technological age when binaural beats were invented and have been revealed to have the same effect on the brainwaves as did the aforementioned drum beats.

Binaural beats work by playing a different tone in each ear, and in the process the brain creates a “phantom tone” which is the difference between the two tones (for example if you play a 300 hz tone in one ear and a 310 hz in the other ear the brain will produce a 10 Hz phantom tone.) If this phantom tone is 10 hz the brain will gradually be led to a dominant brainwave frequency of 10 hz (this has been measured by EEG devices). If the tone is 7 hz the brain will gradually be led to a 7 hz dominant frequency, and so on.

Monaural beats work differently. With monaural beats (as well as with isochronic tones) the same tone is played in both ears but the tone turns on and off at what ever frequency it is programmed to turn on and off at. This creates a beating sound that will turn on and of precisely at 10 hz, 3 hz, 12 hz…whatever it is programmed to do.

Binaural beats combined with monaural beats make up one of the most powerful forms of brainwave entrainment available - Harmonic Box X. Harmonic Box X is what we embed into our mp3’s (with the exception of the Beta Bonus where we use single binaural betas and single isochronic tones embedded into nature sounds). CLICK HERE to read more. 

Other Uses of Binaural Beats Besides Sleep

There are different things that you can use binaural beats for besides sleep.  In fact, binaural beats sleep methods are just a really small fraction of what can be accomplished with brainwave entrainment.

Before I go on and tell you what else binaural beats can be used for, I will briefly describe what brainwave entrainment is.

[su_note]Brainwave entrainment is also known as brainwave synchronization.  According to Wikipedia  brainwave entrainment is “any practice that aims to cause brainwave frequencies to fall into step with a periodic stimulus having a frequency corresponding to the intended brain-state (for example, to induce sleep), usually attempted with the use of specialized software.”[/su_note]

Now onto what else I use binaural beats for, as I have stated I do use binaural beats sleep mp3s but there was so much else I knew I could get from these beats.

So far I have used binaural beat technology for self-hypnosis, self- confidence, and anxiety.  All were needed by me except perhaps the binaural beat hypnosis.  However, I had so much luck with the binaural beats for sleep that I figured I could apply it to other areas of my life.

Things I have not used binaural beats for but plan to, are creativity, memory, and motivation.  These are just a fraction still of what binaural beats are good for.  I won’t go into many more things they are good for since I did that in a previous post, just thought I would share with you what has helped me beside binaural beats sleep methods.