Binaural Beats: The Healing Power of Music

Can Binaural beats affectively enhance your meditative state, bringing you into higher states of consciousness? Personally, I feel they do help me reach a relaxed state easier, and aid in meditation for me, but this really is based on each individual's preferences. 

Binaural beats, or binaural tones, are auditory processing artifacts, or apparent sounds, caused by specific physical stimuli. The brain produces a phenomenon resulting in low-frequency pulsations in the amplitude and sound localization of a perceived sound when two tones at slightly different frequencies are presented separately, one to each of a subject’s ears, using stereo headphones.

The 'frequency-following response' effect has been used to achieve brainwave synchronization for a period of several centuries. Cultures as physically distant as the Monks in Tibet and the Aborigines of Australia have used a variety of instruments to produce music capable of inducing multiple harmonic resonances.

Meditative states are achieved in the mind due to the 'frequency-following response' effect. When an external stimulus with the desired frequency is heard, the corresponding brain-state is induced in the listener. Headphones are required for Binaural beats. This is because the frequency created with Binaural beats is actually due to a small variation in tone from the left ear, to the right. The mind then attempts to compensate for the minor difference. This causes the 'frequency-following response' effect to induce brainwave synchronization, or entrainment.

A simple search on YouTube will bring up many different types of binaural beats, at varying frequencies, for varying uses, ranging from enhanced sleep, better focus, and emotional healing. The next time you go into meditation, give it a try, and see how and if it affects you. Make sure to use your headphones, find a relaxed place, either sitting or lying down and enjoy!