About binaural beats

As promised, in this post we will describe what binaural beats are, how they work and how can they improve your life.

When two different tones of specific frequencies are played through headphones, the brain can become confused and produce its own, imagined tone - a 3D audio hallucination heard only within the head of the listener. The frequencies that produce this phenomenon are known as Binaural Beats.
For example, if a frequency of 100 Hz is played in one ear and a frequency of 110 Hz is played in the other ear, the result is a binaural beat of 10 Hz, created by the brain.
What is actually happening is that the brain is not used to hearing frequencies in each ear so close together and with such intensity as these sounds do not occur in nature and there is no mechanism in our brains to understand them. Instead, the superior olivary nucleus, the area of the brain which controls aspects of 3D sound perception, bridges the difference between the varying frequencies in Binaural Beats with a common 'third tone' in an attempt to normalize this audio into something we can understand.
What is really weird is tat each person hears the third tone differently. It was proved that people with Parkinson's disease can't hear it at all, while women will hear different tones as they move through their menstrual cycle.

About brainwaves

Our brain is made of billions of cells called neurons. To communicate with each other, neurons use electricity. The combination of millions of neurons sending signals at once produces an enormous amount of electrical activity in the brain, which can be detected using sensitive medical equipment, measuring levels of electricity over areas of the scalp.
The combination of electrical activity of the brain is commonly called a 'Brainwave pattern', because of its cyclic, wave-like nature.
Our mind regulated its activities by means of electric waves which are registered in the brain, emiting tiny electrochemical impulses of varied frequencies, which can be registered by an electroencephalogram (EEG).
With the discovery of brain waves, came the discovery that electrical activity in the brain will change depending on what the person is doing. For instance, the brainwaves of a sleeping person are vastly different than the ones of someone wide awake. Over the years, more sensitive equipment has brought us closer to figuring out exactly what brainwaves represent and with that, what they mean about a person's health and state of mind.
The known brainwaves and their associated mental states are:
- Beta emited when we are consciously alert, or we feel agitated, tense, afraid.
- Alpha when we are in a state of physical and mental relaxation, but aware of what is happening around us.
- Theta which is a state of somnolence with reduced consciusness.
- Delta when there is unconsciousness, deep sleep or catalepsy.