February 27th, 2008 by Phil

Have you ever tried meditation, but gave up because you find it difficult to relax and empty your mind for even just 2 minutes?

You may have heard about the health benefits of meditation and how it can help with sleeplessness and insomnia. Some other health benefits include:

• Increase oxygen levels in your body.
• Increase in blood flow.
• Reduction in heart rate.
• Lowered blood pressure.
• Reduction in muscle tension.
• Increase in self-confidence.
• Increase in serotonin production.
• Improves mood and behavior.
• Reduces stress and tension.
• Strengthens the immune system.

Insomnia can often be caused by poor mood, stress, worry, anxiety, tension and low serotonin levels. What’s more a lack of deep sleep can reduce the body’s immune system leaving it prone to diseases and viruses.

Deep meditation can help relieve these underlying issues so that sleep comes easier. What’s more through practice of meditation your brainwaves will slow and may even produce waves in the Alpha and Theta range. Theta waves are associated with REM sleep. With practice you can learn to enter the Theta stages at will – your gateway to sleep.

Confused? Here’s a little More On Brainwaves…

The brain constantly produces waves that flow through its neural pathways which are called brainwaves. There are four brainwave patterns; Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta. Each one is defined by a different set of frequencies measured in Hz (Hertz).

The following is a basic look at the four common types of brainwave patterns, their frequencies and mental states each pattern is associated with:

Beta Waves (13 – 30 Hz)
Commonly found during an active or waking state. It is also associated with busy or anxious thinking, active concentration, arousal and other mental sates such as fear, anger and worry.

Alpha Waves (7 – 13 Hz)
If you’ve ever been relaxed and at peace, perhaps sitting in a park, soaking up the sun then your brain was probably producing alpha waves. Alpha waves are associated with a tranquil state of consciousness, on the edge of deep relaxation and meditation.

Theta Waves (3 – 7 Hz)
Associated with deep meditation, dreaming and REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. During this state your mind wanders where it will and you are in the prime state of creativity, visualization and imagery.

Delta Waves (1 – 3 Hz)
When your brain is producing delta waves you are in deep dreamless sleep or a deep trance like state. This stage is essential for repair and rejuvenation of the mind and body.

So What Is Brainwave Entrainment And How Can It Help?

Brainwave Entrainment is the practice of synchronizing or tuning one’s brainwaves to a desired frequency.

How It Works:

If you play a tone of say 96 Hz in your left ear and 102 Hz in your right ear, your brainwaves will resonate at the differential frequency – 6 Hz. Playing this set of tones will produce a frequency in the range of Theta Waves.

Because of this naturally occurring phenomenon the brain has a tendency to change its dominant EEG (electroencephalograph) frequency towards the frequency of the dominant aural stimuli, in effect ‘synchronizing’ the two hemispheres of the brain.

The use of Binaural Beats can achieve exactly this. When listening to binaural beats, each ear is sent pure sine waves of different frequencies. As I mentioned the brain will resonate at the differential frequency. We can create a range of desired frequencies using binaural beats.

How can this help? Well I guess it’s obvious now, but if we can create a set of tones which create a frequency of between 1 to 3 Hz, your brain can be entrained to resonate at the same frequency. If you look at the brainwave chart above, you’ll notice that Delta Waves are produced at that frequency. Brainwave entrainment can be very helpful in getting into deep meditative states.

Brainwave entrainment can be used for other purposes other than to aid and guide you through meditation. Using binaural beats can actually help with sleep and guide you into deep sleep states.

Many insomnia sufferers have experienced dramatic improvements in the ability to fall asleep through brainwave entrainment alone. It has even been used to effectively treat psychosomatic illnesses like depression. As well as improving mental and physical health it can also increase concentration, memory functioning and even creativity.

If you’re interested in giving brainwave entrainment a try, sign up for my Free Newsletter and you’ll get a free Brainwave Entrainment Audio worth $29 – Click Here to visit www.HowtoBeatInsomnia.com

Alternatively enter your details in the Sign up box on this blog (top right). Don’t forget to confirm subscription to receive your Free Gift!

February 13th, 2008 by Phil

The regular routine things, like sleeping, eating and walking are so common that we hardly spare our time in thinking about them. It’s a vast territory of mystery, which Shakespeare once termed, “night’s second self”. We sleep as it is needed. It’s an inevitable part of our life. But a simple general knowledge about sleeping can make this almost overlooked part a strongly enhancing factor of our life. Let us take a deeper look at some interesting sleeping facts.

Sleep more – feel good, makes sense right? We know that at least eight hours we should spend in sleeping. We are, Bernard Shaw said, “slave to nature for that”. But the recent neo-scientific theory demonstrates the lesser we sleep, the more energetic we feel. It may sound heretic, almost breaking the standard norm of understanding. But the bone of contention goes, a five-six hours of sleeping can make you healthier and more awake. In fact, you may be taken aback hearing the fact that the world’s busiest people, CEOs, entrepreneurs, scientists, whose minds are constantly running relentlessly, sleep only four hours and wake up fresh to face the challenges the day brings.

With the world changing fast and strongly dependent on electronics, you have really a lesser time to adapt to it, both physically and professionally. Thus, there may have been some change in biological need as well.

Is the change destructive? Are those people victim of insomnia? Or do they hide some secret mystery? The truth is the more you sleep, the lazier you become. Sleep more than necessary and it’s likely you will feel tired and sluggish. Oversleeping makes you feel exhausted, and consequentially lazy.  After a particular point of time, you are bound to feel bored or irritated.

So is it possible to sleep less and feel vibrant? The answer is ‘Yes’, it’s astonishing that people are performing well while sleeping less. Actually, the old calculation goes, you should sleep eight hours a day, but how true is this? This mathematics strips you off one third of your life. The quarter of the rest is gone in performing nature’s duties.

In fact, this order has been set according to the load of the work. Previously people had much time to perform their work. But this ultra-sophisticated world demands from you more time to ameliorate it better. Thus the order of sleep has lessened accordingly. Science is in no way opposed to that. It’s only a matter of adaptation.

Now, prepare the statistics. Eight hours of sleeping gives sixteen hours of work. Add two hours to your work by deducting it from sleeping, and then calculate it for the next ten years. The amount can fulfill any number of dreams you set. In fact, you waste one-third of your life by sleeping. Imagine how much progress you could make if you were able to dedicate two hours extra to your work. The working proverb is not, early to bed and early to rise anymore.