Busting Myths About Binaural Beats

Many people have put binaural beats on a high pedestal, believing them to be capable of achieving so much. But are they really entraining the brain? Or doing something else? 
 Uncover the truth behind binaural beats and discover the transformative potential of isochronic tones.

Prepare to have your mind expanded as we navigate the often misunderstood realms of auditory brain entrainment .

Knowing this information may help you enhance and accelerate your own brain and mind changes.

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Transcript

Maniisha: 0:04

you, welcome to Limbic Light podcast season 3. In this season, we'll be diving deep into the marvels of our subconscious mind light, sound brainwave, entrainment and so many other natural ways to help you become clearer, calmer and more potent in being. I've titled this season Deep Brain Retrain. I'm Manisha Blunchley, your host, with more than 40 years experience in the natural health field, ready to share with you my very best tips. Let's get on with the show.

Maniisha: 1:22

Hello everyone, it's nice to be back, and today I've chosen a topic which there is a lot of misconception about, which I wanted to bring a little bit of clarity to, and it's on the topic of binaural beats, and I'll be also discussing something else called isotonic beats. So today I'll be looking at some of the misconceptions about binaural beats, what they actually are, what they're capable of doing, their pros and cons, and then I'll be discussing what isotonic sounds are, what they can do, their pros and cons and how all these beats can help us in both our mental and physical health. So let me start with just a little bit of a story, and it was actually just this morning that I was looking online to see if I could get a few samples of some of these beats that I'm going to be speaking about today, and, as I typed in in the search bar, I was looking for isotonic sounds, binaural sounds and what was coming up was there was a flood of information all about binaural beats, or samples of sounds and music, or superimposed binaural beats with music in the background. Virtually nothing showed itself up on isotonic beats. So what I wanted to say was that, through searching into these different beats, I've realised that it's an unfortunate case of certain people taking and running with an idea which has been probably blown out of proportion. I'm talking about binaural beats, that they've been given a lot of credit to be able to do a lot of things, but I'd like to investigate that a little bit more deeply today to see what they're really doing and what they're capable of. So let's start off with what are binaural beats Before I go any further. I just want to say that one of the reasons why there's so much attention and excitement around these beats is because they do actually have a great ability to be able to entrain the brain, and I have already produced a whole episode all about brain entrainment, so don't worry if you haven't heard that. However, I will be putting a link in the show notes for you to go back to that if you have not yet heard it.

Maniisha: 4:06

There is a phenomena it's called brain entrainment, where any pulsing sound or light or rhythm on the outside that's perceived by our senses has the ability to synchronise our brain electrical patterns. And this is really useful because, whatever we do for our brain patterns, we're able to adjust our mind states and of course we know there are so many troubles or imbalances in our mind state. If we have a method, a very sure and true method, to be able to adjust how our brain functions with the brain waves and thereby affecting how our mind state is, then we have a very powerful therapeutic tool. Now I usually break down the brain entrainment into two specific categories one is the sound and one is the light pulses. Today we're only really talking about the sound element. So this phenomena of brain entrainment is something that's not new at all. It's existed in history in many different ways, particularly in the indigenous cultures, where they used rhythmic patterns of clapping or chanting or singing in ceremony to induce a higher state of consciousness or to attain wisdom, or even to heal the body and the mind, and for thousands of years there's been instruments like the Aboriginal Did you Redo or Tibetan Singing Bowls, or the Native American Flute and the Tribal Drum, and they've all been revered as very powerful tools of transformation, and one of the reasons is because they have this ability to bring in this hypnotic trance, like beating, rhythmic movement, to our brain and our being. So this has been confirmed by the more modern day scientists, the neuroscientists, who found that audio entrainment helps to bring about the same types of benefits altered consciousness, change of mind states. Now, when this whole science has been developed the brain entrainment.

Maniisha: 6:30

In the sound area, there's been mostly two types of tones that have been used. One of them is the binaural beats and the other one is isochronic tones. Let's look at the binaural beats first. Way back in 1839, a German physicist by the name of Heinrich Wilhelm Dove, and he discovered the power of auditory beats. He found that there was the ability to create a phantom or a ghost type of new beat within the brain itself when there were two different tones played in separate ears. So it created this phenomena of like a wow effect.

Maniisha: 7:18

So, for example, when you have stereo headphones on and you're delivering one tone, let's say that it's 200 hertz in the right ear and then we have a 207 hertz in the left ear. There'll be a difference of 7 hertz and when the brain hears that however, it does need to only hear it via stereo headphones then there'll be a created phenomena inside the brain. There'll be that third beat and it will equal the difference between those two frequencies. In other words, the 7 hertz will be heard as a phantom type of beat. This is a binaural beat. So one of the things about the binaural beats is that they can only be heard when a person is using headphones, and they need to be stereo headphones. So if you're listening to something on a speaker or through your phone, for example, the very many plethora of binaural beat tracks that there are freely available on YouTube, on the internet, you're not actually going to be able to hear or sense those binaural beats. You do have to be listening to them with headphones.

Maniisha: 8:39

Coming a bit further, in 1973, gerald Oster published a famous article in the Scientific American. He titled it Auditory Beats in the Brain. He was the first one to bring this phenomena of binaural beats out into the public and he wrote quite different phenomena results when stereo phonic earphones are used and the signals are applied separately to each ear. Under the right circumstances, beats can be perceived. They are of an entirely different character. They are called binaural beats.

Maniisha: 9:18

Binaural beats require the combined action of both ears. They exist as a consequence of the interaction of perceptions within the brain. So there's many advantages and also disadvantages with binaural beats. One of the major advantage is that there's hemispheric synchronization. That means that the two parts of the brain, the left and the right hemispheres, will start to communicate, and not only communicate, but they'll go into a form of coherence. So this can be a really good method to bring more harmony between the two sides of the mind or the brain, which usually function quite independently. Binaural beats are also known to have a very hypnotic and relaxing effect. However, saying that they are often combined with very relaxing music, so it's very hard to distinguish whether the hypnotic and calming effects is from the music or from the binaural beats. As far as the disadvantages go for binaural beats, they don't actually create a strong entraining effect in the brain. So this is contrary to what you'll hear mostly out in the world.

Maniisha: 10:47

A lot of people make claims that the beta binaural beats will bring about better studyability or sharper mind, or the alpha and theta will put you into a theta brainwave state. There's actually been a really growing amount of hype on the internet all about binaural beats, and you can probably tell by now that I'm not a huge fan of binaural beats. I think they do have their purpose, and particularly for harmonising the brain. But all the claims, or many of the claims that are made on the internet about being able to entrain the brain into a certain brain rhythm or brain pattern is mostly incorrect. In reality, binaural beats actually offer the very weakest form of brain entrainment Because the beat itself is created within the brain itself. The volume is barely audible it's roughly around three decibels and as such, because it's so low in its volume, it doesn't actually produce a very strong neural effect, that's an effect on the mind or the brain.

Maniisha: 12:05

There is one expert by the name of Dave Siva from Canada. I am aiming to get him onto my podcast for an interview, hopefully soon. He has produced a plethora of really decent research studies and papers that have been investigating brain entrainment. In some of his studies he actually disproves the effectiveness of binaural beats to create brain entrainment effects, and this is one of his quotes. Binaural beats are not very noticeable because the modulation depth, that is, the difference between loud and quiet, is three decibels. Binaural beats are two to one ratio, whereas isochronic tones give a beat which have easily a 50 decibel difference between loud and quiet, which is approximately 100,000 to one ratio. This means that binaural beats are unlikely to produce a significant entrainment because they don't activate the thalamus. Thank you, so this is really interesting to hear an expert saying this.

Maniisha: 13:23

Another character of binaural beats is that they can only be used for beat rates below 25 Hz. That's a roundabout in the beta range. Anything higher won't mix and produce the desired beat, and that is just a character of the nature of binaural beats. So that means that we're eliminating the ability to create the very useful and newly discovered gamma beats, the gamma frequencies, with a binaural beat. Yet I see throughout the internet that there are so many videos on YouTube saying listen to the gamma frequency with this binaural beat, but in fact that's a false claim. It's not possible. Another characteristic of binaural beats is that they won't form in the brain if the two tones have a pitch which are higher than 900 Hz. So binaural beats are only best heard at pitches which are below 440 Hz. Again, that challenges some of the information and hype that's out there on the market.

Maniisha: 14:35

One of the most common complaints about binaural beats is the necessity to have stereo headphones to be able to hear them. Without these headphones, you won't hear them. So many people like to lay in their bed and listening to audio in trainment tracks to help them get to sleep, but it can be very difficult laying in bed with headphones on or with earbuds jammed in your ears, so it's optimal if you can be playing something also on speakers. Hi there, I just wanted to briefly share some very exciting news with you. I have developed a six week online course called Deep Brain Retrain, which comes live early next year. This course is designed to help you free yourself from old, limiting belief patterns and also to help you unlock your fuller, greater potential. You'll be learning topics like understanding brain waves, how they connect to certain mind states, how you can actually influence your mind using brain in trainment and identifying and rewriting your own early beliefs, crafting personalised hypnotic scripts and, most importantly, you'll be creating your very own brain in trainment audio tracks using free software, binaural or isotonic beats, mixing primordial sounds, music and messages so that you have a track which resonates specifically with you. You can register your interest in the link below the show notes, below this podcast, I'll be offering a substantial discount to the first 10 people who enroll and I'll let you know when this offer and enrollment becomes live. So if this resonates with you, just pop your name down in the register your interest link below and I will be in touch.

Maniisha: 16:48

Okay, let's get on with the show. Okay, let's just have a look at another beat which is often not heard about. So what an isotonic tone is? It's a tone which basically comes on and off, on and off. It uses one single tone and it repetitively, as I said, goes on and off. These isochronic tones are often referred to in their frequency according to how many times they beat per a second and that is their Hertz measurement. So, for example, if a beat, a tone of this sort, is coming on and off, and on and off, four times per second, you have got a delta, or actually just on the border of theta frequency, which beats at four Hertz. Once again, the expert Dave Siever, who has done a great deal of research into brain entrainment, comments on the effectiveness of isochronic tones they're also known as isotonic tones and he says, and he says about these isotonic tones. They are an effective auditory entrainment method because they elicit a strong auditory evoked response via the thalamus.

Maniisha: 18:13

In 1981, arturo Manz published a breakthrough study showing the effectiveness of isochronic tones. In his study he used pulses of sound to successfully treat a form of chronic pain called myofascial pain syndrome. Now just make the comment here that there was a very popular form of self-hypnosis it was the silver method. He used isotonic tones to induce a hypnotic state in the people that he was working with. So he had these pulsing beats or sounds and they were in the theta range, so they would be beating somewhere around four beats per second and people would hear that and go into a hypnotic state rather quickly and then he would give his suggestions Thanks. So he used isotonic tones purely for his hypnotic inductions and effectiveness, to get his message, hypnotic message, into people.

Maniisha: 19:20

So not all isotonic tones are desirable or the same. So I just wanted to mention there's a few different types that I'd like you to be aware of. So if you know anything about electricity or radio waves or energy in general, you'll know that when there's a propagation of energy it expresses itself in different forms. Now I want you to picture on a piece of paper the different formats. There are three types of waves. One of them is a square wave, the other one is a triangular wave and the other one is a sine wave. So square wave, as you can imagine, when the sound comes on. It comes on abruptly, it's up and it's on and then it's suddenly off. It forms like a square wave pattern.

Maniisha: 20:14

Now, the square wave types of isotonic tones aren't particularly great. It's one of the harshest sounding isotonic tones Yet I have to say it's also the most powerful. But some people have an aversion to this. It's not very gentle, it's not very natural. So it's a very sharp tone on off, on off. Whereas the second one, which is the triangular wave, if you can imagine the volume, comes up in a gradual rising, as in a triangle. It comes up to its peak and then it goes down again back to quietness in a gentle, gradual way. So it forms like a triangular form. So this wave is much smoother sounding than the square wave, yet its effects for brain entrainment aren't as effective, not as powerful.

Maniisha: 21:14

And then there's a sine wave, and hopefully most of you have heard what a sine wave actually is. A sine wave it's just like a wave in the ocean. It gradually builds up to its peak and then gradually comes back down to the base level again. So it's probably the most natural wave that you would see or experience in nature and it's also probably the most natural format that we can use for these isotonic tones for our brain. The brain likes it, the body likes it. It's gentle, it's natural and it's still very effective. It has a smooth sound. It's very often used for relaxation. So ideally, if ever you were to create these isotonic sounds which I'll be introducing into my coming up course all about helping people to create their own audio brain entrainment tracks you'll be using sine waves for the audios. So at this stage I'm going to just do a very short synopsis, a comparison chart you could say the binaural.

Maniisha: 22:30

Binaural beats are the consequence of perception. It's a phantom, ghost sound, whereas isotonic tones are actual beats. Binaural requires you to wear headphones, whereas isotonic they don't have any need for headphones. Speakers will work well. Binaural beats can only be used for frequencies under 25 hertz. Therefore they're not applicable for gamma frequencies or the very high lambda frequencies, whereas isotonic can cause very effective brain entrainment in all the frequencies. Binaural beats are barely audible at a sound volume level of approximately 3 decibels, whereas isotonic are heard around about the 50 decibel level. Binaural beats synchronizes the brain hemispheres, whereas isotonic tones can very easily induce any brain wave state it causes brain entrainment, whereas the binaural beats will not be causing a brain entrainment, or if it does, it's very minimalistic. Binaural beats have been shown to have a very relaxing and hypnotic effect, and isotonic tones also can do that, but they can also uplift and stimulate brain function. One of the disadvantages of isotonic tones is that care has to be taken with epileptics. However, that's more of a phenomena of visual brain entrainment. The sound is reasonably safe as long as you use the sine wave sounds. So that's it in a nutshell. I hope you've got something out of this.

Maniisha: 24:39

I wanted to dispel some of the myths that are surrounding binaural beats, and it's not that I don't think that they're effective or they're great. I just think that there's been too much hype and too many claims stating what they can do, whereas I actually think the credit needs to go to more the isotonic tones, and I just wanted to say that in my course, which I've produced, for people to produce their own audio brain entrainment methods, I'll be recommending mostly isotonic tones. There's some people that actually combine isotonic with binaural in the same track. I've done that and I just listened to one of those tracks this morning and I have to say that I find it a little bit grating, a little bit difficult. It doesn't sit well with me. So I think it's best to keep these two frequencies separate. If you're using binaural, use that as a standalone, or if you're using isotonic, use that separately. Anyway, this is a very exciting area and one of the reasons why it's so exciting is because we can change our mind states by using the most simplest of methods of pulsed tones.

Maniisha: 25:58

Anyhow, I'm going to leave that with you today. I hope that somehow you've got more information that's going to help you, and please share this message on to other people so that they can explore and be more wise to what's going on in their brain and their mind. Okay, thank you so much for listening. I look forward to speaking to you once again in the upcoming episode. So take care and all the best. Bye for now. Music You've been listening to Mini Schablunchley on Limbic Light Podcasts. If you liked this show, subscribe in the link below in the show notes so that you can be informed every time when a new episode is released and also know about my upcoming courses and more. Thanks so much for listening and being here. Bye for now. Music, music, music, music.