The word ‘stress’ is thrown around so often in today’s society that it pretty much ends up being one of those things that loses its meaning, we end up taking the term and its subsequent cost for granted. This ‘state of being’ has become the norm; people don’t even remember what it’s like to live a stress-free life. It’s not that there isn’t any research showing how stress affects our lives in all aspects, there are TONS! But none of that really matters when you have a family to feed, or a mortgage to pay, or a car payment to make…the list goes on.

Although in recent years scientific evidence has shown that stress directly affects our health; and therefore our relationships, our jobs, and ultimately our bank accounts, nothing has really changed in the last hundred years or so… except there’s more stress in people’s lives than ever before. There is no doubt that stress and illness are synonymous; and although we know that it affects our body in negative ways, it is difficult to control it on our own without some kind of help. Stress affects the body in so many different ways, that there is no clear path that describes exactly how it causes this emotional state, and ultimately how it affects long-term health. For one, there are some clear correlations between emotional state and biochemical state when it comes to stress, but there’s still a lot we don’t know because the body isn’t just a biochemical entity. The human body is also an electrical/energetic entity, herein lies the problem, how do we link what happens in the physical world with something that is quite intangible?

Asians, Tibetans, and other societies throughout the world have understood what is known in modern terms as bioenergetic medicine, and have practiced it in the form of meditation, yoga, tai chi, and Qigong for many generations. We here in the West are only now realizing what other societies have known for hundreds of years. Now that we’ve “seen the light,” there’s a lot of research being done to bridge the gap between stress, illness, and good health. However, it will be some time before researchers can come up with a “one-size-fits-all” game plan.

It is well known that the stress hormone adrenaline is released into the bloodstream during stressful situations. Now, researchers are discovering that there is a direct connection between this stress hormone and other debilitating diseases such as MS, Alzheimer’s, cancer, and many other disease states. It is not clear at this time if this stress hormone causes disease or if it is the effect the hormone has on the body during these times of stress. It is theorized that it can reduce a person’s ability to fight disease as the various bodily systems become depleted.

As you can see, stress is serious business, and it’s definitely not something you can take for granted! So what can you do to ‘control yourself’? Is there something we can do for ourselves that will establish some kind of balance in our lives? The answer is yes! Well, at least as far as what you’re willing to do for yourself, this is because, for the most part, most people expect someone else to “make it right” for them. The good news is that you have the power to make positive changes ON YOUR OWN. It all starts in the brain… you have to make a conscious decision to make concrete changes in the way you live and think. This includes all aspects of your life, areas including, but not limited to, your diet, quitting smoking, quitting drugs and alcohol, making better decisions together, and letting go of the past.

You don’t have to figure this all out alone, there are a plethora of self-help books and videos available to buy or rent that can guide you through this maze. It’s completely doable, you just need to know what to look for and be able to ask for help if you need it. There is even technology available that can basically “grab” your brain during the decompression phase. This equipment and software will put your brain in the receptive state needed to facilitate inner growth. As said before… it’s all in the mind. Since we have limited space to work here, we can touch the area that will facilitate your body’s fastest response to ‘bring you down’ to a level that will create the kind of calm you need to thrive. Take a deep breath…

A lot of software and other technology is sold that claims to elicit the relaxation response. Some of them are wonderful, while others… well, not so much. So you have to be careful what you buy, you don’t want to create more stress for yourself than you are already facing. This is how it works, certain types of sound and light technology produce actual sound and light at certain frequencies. When the client is exposed to these frequencies in their various forms, they have a direct impact on the brain (3). The brain itself produces its own set of frequencies, in what are commonly known as “brain waves.” They are divided into several categories, they are:

BETA BRAIN WAVES (13 to 40 Hz)

ALPHA BRAIN WAVES (8 to 12Hz)

THETA BRAIN WAVES (4 to 7 Hz)

DELTA BRAIN WAVES (.5 to 4 Hz)

Hz = hertz or cycles per second

Each of the brain wave states above comes with a full description of the benefits they offer. The Beta state is the normal waking state, the further down the list the slower the brain waves become. Delta brain waves are the slowest form; this state can be achieved during deep sleep. Although there are some people who can achieve this state of mind while awake and claim they can achieve a ‘oneness’ with the universe while doing so. Yogis in the East spend their entire lives trying to achieve this state of mind, do we have to wait that long? The answer is no, we now have technology that allows us to achieve any state of mind we want in a fraction of the time it used to take. The technology that has been developed is quite sophisticated and performs a task called brain wave entrainment.

You can now manipulate your brain using light and sound, and since many neurological problems involve chemistry, psychology, and emotions that often lead to chaotic brain waves, you can, with the right equipment, “set things straight” (1). By itself, brain waves produce variable electrical frequencies that are measured in hertz (cycles per second). Many people with neurological and other psychological problems have a tendency to be under- or over-aroused in their brains. Mental machines of various kinds and some software products help re-educate the brain using visual and auditory stimuli. You can learn ways to produce faster or slower brain waves, the good thing is that there are no age restrictions when using any of these technologies to improve today’s mindset (2). This area of ​​study is not one dimensional, it also needs to be said here that there are other factors that determine how healthy your brain will be, one of those areas is nutrition, however that is the subject of another article.

This technology can improve:

hyperactive behaviors

And get a relaxed and alert state

Your learning skills and the ability to learn foreign languages ​​faster.

And lower your blood pressure

And facilitate memory recall.

Balance and hormone production

Self-confidence

job performance

athletic performance

And the list goes on and on…

Sound and light machines and software of various kinds can be found all over the web, if you go out and do a keyword search related to this topic you will get literally hundreds of thousands of results dealing with all aspects of this topic. The task now is to select which products will be beneficial for you. Some of these products can be quite expensive and some are worthless, so you have to make the right choice the first time. We could go into a long list of do’s and don’ts, and what to look for and what to stay away from, but that would require more space than we have here to go through this. But what we can do is distinguish between the hardware being sold and the software and provide you with a couple of websites to start your search. This will save you an enormous amount of time and effort, because most of the work has already been done for you. The list and types of products is long, and the reasons to buy them, even longer. So regarding hardware, I can say that out of all the sites out there, the best one to get started with hardware at all levels would be http://www.photosonix.com. This site and the Elixa website will provide you with a variety of products that will be beneficial for you to get started.

Regarding software that is available to the public today, one of the best companies selling this type of technology can be found at http://www.transparentcorp.com. This company without exception offers some of the best professional grade affordable software on the market for brain training/stimulation, meditation facilitation, brain retraining, learning disorder treatment, and self-hypnosis. The company forum will provide you with a wealth of information that will help facilitate your learning process.

It is very important that you connect with well educated and knowledgeable people who have thoroughly studied how what they are selling will affect you, not those who are just marketing products for the sake of selling ‘something’. It’s like the old saying goes, “you can’t provide for others what you don’t have yourself.”

The field of neuroscience is truly in its infancy, even still, with the research that is currently available, and because of the products on offer, you can certainly ease the process of changing your life for the better in many ways using this technology that the benefits are too numerous to count.

References:

1. Manns, A., Miralles, R. and Adrian, H. (1981). The application of audiostimulation and electromyographic biofeedback to bruxism and myofascial pain dysfunction syndrome. Oral Surgery, 52(3), 247-252.

2. Frederick, J., Lubar, J., Rasey, H., Brim, S., & Blackburn, J. (1999). Effects of 18.5 Hz audiovisual stimulation on EEG amplitude at the vertex. Neurotherapy Journal, 3(3), 23-27.

3. Oster, G. (1973). Auditory beats in the brain. Scientific American, X, 94-102.

copyright © 2010 James Lembeck