Omnivos Therapeutics Sound Therapy Education Center

Working With Binaural Beats in Sound Therapy: Part 1

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"Binaural beats or binaural tones are auditory processing artifacts, or apparent sounds, the perception of which arises in the brain for specific physical stimuli." Wikipedia

Bet that was helpful. Here it is in english and how it pertains to sound therapy. When you place two different sounds by your ears, one by the right and the other by the left, your brain creates a third tone called a binaural beat.

If you happen to have 2 tuning forks, tap and place them by either ear. Listen for the third note which may feel like a wave of sound moving from the right to left side of your brain. That's the binaural bead.

Now scroll down to the bottom of this page where you will find four pictures, each one showing an EEG. Don't read the descriptions, just take a quick look at the images then come back to this point...

So, which image looks like high alert? Most people would say the Beta image. Which image looks the calmest? That would be Delta. Each of these images also represent your mental state, very alert, relaxed, asleep.

• You are driving down the road, a child runs in front of the car and you hit the brakes. At that moment your brain is in a beta state, very alert. Your brain wave looks like the beta image.
• You are sitting on the couch at the end of the day, feeling relaxed and calmer. This is an alpha state. Theta and delta states are where you are when you are in a deep sleep or deep meditation.

So What Do I Do With This Information?

Say it is close to bed time but you are still very awake, in a beta or high alpha state. You can help your brain to slow down to an alpha state by listening to something that creates an alpha state.

Another example, you are a health practitioner, doesn't matter if you are an massage therapist, working with reiki, acupuncture, herbs or an onocologist. You can tell you client is in a high alert or agitated state. It would be better if they could relax before beginning by bringing them to an alpha state.

There are a lot of ways to do this, recordings, breathing techiniques and yes, with the use of tuning forks and crystal singing bowls which have nearly instantaneous results. You can work with different binaural beats by selecting specific frequencies.

Explaining it at this point will make this post too long so I will cover how to select tuning forks to create beta, alpha, theta and delta states in the next post.

State of Consciousness	EEG Rhythms	Description
Beta 13Hz +		Beta state is associated with peak concentration, heightened alertness, hand eye coordination and visual acuity. -Peak-concentration -Heightened alertness -Cognition -Visual acuity
Alpha 8Hz - 12Hz		Alpha state is a place of deep relaxation, but not quite meditation. In Alpha, we begin to access the wealth of creativity that lies just below our conscious awareness-it is the gateway, the entry point that leads into deeper states of consciousness. -Relaxation -Quietly Alert -Introspective -Creativity -Visualization
Theta 4Hz - 7Hz		Theta is known as the twilight state which we normally only experience fleetingly as we rise up out of the depths of delta upon waking, or drifting off to sleep. In Theta, we are in a waking dream, vivid imagery flashes before the mind's eye and we are receptive to information beyond our normal conscious awareness. Theta has also been identified as the gateway to learning an memory. -Waking-dream -Vivid imagery -Meditation -Memory -Intuition
Delta < 4Hz		Delta is associated with deep sleep and long trains of thoughts about nothingness or energy without form. During delta we plug into our source, the Universal Energy Field, and use the energy to revitalize our mind and body. -Detached Awareness -Healing -Deep Sleep

Any two tuning forks used together create a binaural beat. To work with binaural beats described in this article, take a look at the Brain Tuners.