Do Binaural Beats Work? | Binaural Beats and Meditation
Maria Rainier, freelance writer
Since Heinrich Wilhelm Dove discovered their properties in 1839, binaural beats have made their ways into the ears and minds of New Age and holistic followers and neurologists alike. Many audio CDs and YouTube videos (complete with psychedelic-inspired visual animation) use binaural beats to help listeners achieve a calmer, clearer state of mind during the practice of yoga and/or meditation.
Amidst much controversy, many advocates insist that binaural beats — created by playing different tones in each ear at differing frequencies, creating the acoustic illusion of a beat — can do everything from helping listeners achieve sleep to a drug-free hallucinogenic mind state. Some even assert that smokers and those suffering from chronic pain stand to benefit from binaural beats. Hardcore advocates claim that this is because of entrainment and that binaural beats trigger it.
Resonant Entrainment
In physics, entrainment refers to the synchronization of two systems oscillating at different frequencies at whatever the combined system’s resonant frequency. Examples exist in nature: The croaking of frogs and the aligning of menstrual cycles among women in other women’s company. The basic claim being made for binaural beats is that they will entrain the listeners’ brain waves. According to this theory, music affects brain waves which affect brain states: Happiness, calmness, sleep, hallucination, out-of-body experiences, energy, etc.
Entrainment Versus Thermodynamics and Common Sense
Supportive evidence goes back to the year 1665, when Dutchman Christiaan Huygens hung two pendulum clocks next to each other on one wall; the pendulums eventually matched frequencies, albeit in antiphase (i.e. when one swung left, the other swung right).
What most advocates don’t know or omit, however, is that as soon as Huygens removed a clock from the same wall as the other, the pendulums swung on their own frequency. The case suddenly becomes one that has little to do with entrainment and more to do with thermodynamics. As the pendulums swung while against the same wall, they conveyed minute equal and opposite reactions to the wall, not the other pendulum. This means that they sought the lowest energy level, which was swinging in antiphase.
Applying the first half of Huygens’ findings to the supposed entrainment of binaural beats leads to the summary that the beats will cause the listener’s brain’s electroencephalogram to match the beat’s frequency. Because the brain doesn’t function this way, however, it is clear that entrainment has little to do with anything. A certain frequency of noise does not change brain waves to induce happiness. Brain waves are a product of states of mind.
Beneficial Binaural Beats
This does not mean, however, that binaural beats have no effect on the brain. They affect not the brain waves but the brain state. Various kinds of music affect the brain to be in various states, and this is still true when applied to various people. For example, the brain of someone who likes heavy metal will react positively to heavy metal. They may become happy or energetic. Someone who doesn’t like heavy metal will feel negatively toward it. Likewise, those who enjoy classical music may feel calm or creative when listening to Mozart because the music affects the brain state, which sends out brain waves that increase serotonin and other chemicals that affect moods.
No studies have conclusively declared binaural beats to be the cure-all alternative medicine that strong advocates claim it to be. A study in Japan published in the Journal of Neurophysiology (2006) found various results among nine subjects who listened to binaural beats. The study could only conclude that binaural beats encouraged activity in the cerebral cortex, but this was more likely due to conscious auditory reaction to the music and had little to do with entrainment. The experiment could have used Enya or Tchaikovsky instead and results would have likely been similar.
The bottom line is that music of varying types encourages varying brain states for various types of peoples. This is why people listen to music when they’re running or working out in the gym, while others listen to music when trying to go to sleep, and still others listen to music when studying. Binaural beats are simply another take on music and mind states. Listening to it will only encourage listeners to stop smoking if the listener already has the intent to stop smoking and uses the music to enhance a state of calm. The listener could listen to anything else and achieve the same mind state, as long as that person’s choice in music was one that he or she attributed to calmness.
Binaural Beats and Meditation
As said before, binaural beats are often featured in yoga videos and audio tracks. Despite evidence stated above, to say that binaural beats will not aid in the practice of achieving calm through yoga or enhancing a session of meditation is both unfair and unfounded. Binaural beats, in most people, aid in reaching a clear-headed and quiet state of mind. Listening to hip-hop or rap will not do this for most listeners, although some swear by trip-hop or ambient rock.
Binaural beat audio CDs and program peddlers will make ludicrous claims like the following:
- Binaural beats will make you “instantly” obtain “guru-level meditation states”
- Binaural beats will increase your IQ
- Binaural beats will help you discover more about “the inner you”
To buy a $30 CD for claims that can be applied to almost any other kind of music — from Mozart to underground music producer Nujabes — is unnecessary. Binaural beats may aid listeners in achieving calmed states that may enhance the meditative experience, but that it will instantly make you a guru or that it will by sheer principle affect your IQ is a blatant lie. The Mozart Effect (the theory that listening to Mozart will improve short-term memory) only works if the listener actually studies to retain information in the first place. Likewise, listening to binaural beats will only help listeners meditate if they are already adept at meditation.
If binaural beats make you sleepy, listen to them to induce sleep. If they invigorate you, listen to them in the morning to help you out the door. Although not the cure-all some advocates claim them to be, the benefits of binaural beats are patent, as with any other kind of music.
Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education and performs research surrounding online schools. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.
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@Paul I’ve never heard of it. A lot of people do use binaural beats as a meditation aid. You can play it during your practice, preferably with headphones. It really does seem to nudge you beyond your normal threshold. Just be ready for a “healing crisis” or a series of them and perhaps nothing noticeable at all for the first few months.
Interesting post. I enjoy using binaural beats but i find all the scientific jargon sometimes hard to understand. I recently heard about a brand new course on twitter that explains how to use binaural beats to lower stress or anxiety called Soothing Stress Relief Sounds Course. Does anyone know when it will be available as i want to get a copy of it?