Binaural Beats Saved My Sleep Schedule
Listening to a 7-minute video two times was enough to make me fall asleep in 15 minutes or less.
For years, I’ve had trouble sleeping. I spent 1 hour on my phone each night. After that, it took me another 30 minutes to fall asleep. Every morning, I woke up with no motivation. Every waking experience was the biggest task of every day. It wasn’t until I discovered binaural beats that I could sleep within 15 minutes.
I now spend around an hour relaxing to binaural beats to improve focus, relax, improve confidence, and be more motivated. This is more of a hobby than a routine at this point!
What Are Binaural Beats?
According to Healthline, Binaural beats are two tones with differing frequencies. It assigns each tone to one ear. Once these frequencies play, your brain processes a beat at the difference of frequencies.
You’re probably wondering what that means.
Let’s say it assigns your left ear a frequency of 67 Hz. Meanwhile, your right ear is listening to a frequency of 60. The brain then processes a tone of 7 Hz once it plays together these two frequencies. This means the sound playing is a theta frequency. This occurs because the brain synchronizes the beats with the difference of the frequencies.
An Alternative to Meditation
With our society relying more on technology, we continue to find technological alternatives to meditation. Medical experts have proven that meditation has multiple health benefits, including:
- Reduced stress
- Controlled anxiety
- Improved mental health
- Greater self-awareness
- Lengthened attention span
But it’s not always easy to meditate. Here’s why:
- You don’t always have the time to sit around for 10 minutes
- It’s difficult to stay in place
- You can’t clear your mind
- Too many distractions
- You don’t know how to do it
With binaural beats, you may receive the same benefits without needing to concentrate. This means you can listen to these ambient pieces of music from anywhere.
I’m even listening to binaural beats as I’m writing this!
How do binaural beats provide the same perks?
They affect your brainwave patterns depending on what frequency you listen to. This is much like how meditation affects our brainwave patterns.
Which Frequency is Best for Me?
Different frequencies result in different aids. To figure out what frequency to listen to, figure out what you want first. Knowing what you want makes it much easier to stay consistent with listening. The more consistent you are, the faster results will come.
With that being said, these are the different frequencies with their advantages:
- Delta range (1–4 Hz): Deep sleep and relaxation
- Theta range (4–8 Hz): REM sleep, lowered anxiety, relaxation, meditative and creative states
- Alpha range (8–13 Hz): encourages relaxation, promote positivity, and decrease anxiety
- Beta range (14–30 Hz): increased concentration and alertness, problem-solving, and improved memory
The beta frequency is my favorite. It makes me feel like I can achieve superintelligence!
Look Out!
This seems like an amazing gift to our well-being, right? Nope. There are still countless controversies and downsides surrounding binaural beats.
We should further note that binaural beats have not been analyzed by the FDA. What are the controversies and negatives, you ask? Well… there are a lot.
1) Working on tasks that need a lot of concentration while listening to these frequencies.
You don’t need to concentrate while listening. But it might be dangerous to operate machinery during this time. Binaural beats put you in a hypnotic state. This means you lose plenty of focus by listening to the beats.
2) Hearing Loss
When played, binaural beats send out loud vibrations. Some people believe that the louder the beats are, the faster results will come. This is false. Some people believe that they are achieving a shift in perception because of how loud they are playing this audio. This is not the case.
Playing any audio at a high level can lead to hearing loss. This is especially true of binaural beats since they are loud, to begin with.
If it is louder than a power lawnmower, it is too loud.
Don’t play these audios for too long (over an hour). And listening overnight is a no-no, even if you want to go into a deep sleep.
I experienced dizziness from listening for too long at a high volume.
3) Refrain from listening if you fit these categories:
- People who suffer from seizures
- People with heart conditions
- People taking tranquilizers
- People with psychological disorders
- Children under the age of 13
- Pregnant women
That’s quite a long list for something that’s supposed to provide health benefits. Always be cautious when listening because binaural beats affect brainwaves. Brainwaves additionally affect our heart rhythms. This means binaural beats indirectly affect our heart rhythms.
4) Misleading Audio Titles
Some people who create binaural beats may change the frequencies to something undesired. This can be used to intentionally harm us. Or the publisher is inexperienced.
Let’s say I wanted to listen to a delta frequency. I’ll scroll through delta frequency audios on the web. I come across a video titled “Delta Frequency for Sleep”. The publisher labeled the video as a delta frequency. Yet, they put a higher beta frequency. This can lead to anxiety and wakefulness since higher beta frequencies cause anxiety and excitement.
That is not a result that you want when you’re trying to sleep. So, you must research who and where these audios come from before listening.
Is it a Placebo Effect?
Short answer: no. Binaural beats can create placebo effects. Yet, they can create non-placebo benefits. This is another reason why we receive different results. For example, two people work on a problem for 30 minutes. One person is bound to find the solution quicker than the other. This could be because of how engaged they were or how receptive they are to information — or other factors.
Our minds are simply unique.
The little research done on binaural beats remains inconclusive. We don’t know whether it is effective as a clinical treatment for health issues. But it sure seems like an amazing way to meditate without meditating!
It’s crazy to think about how I used binaural beats to sleep better at first. And now I’m listening to them for so many other benefits. I’ve become so much more confident and I’m gaining focus the more I listen.
