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Brain Wave Technology - Neurotechnology
Have you noticed that you or others have brains that seem like their wires are crossed, brains that are scattered, anxious, and unable to listen? Many of you tell me that your brains won't stop thinking, even as you try to sleep. Actually, this seems like an epidemic.
In the 1970s the Menninger Clinic and research emanating from the Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York discovered a property of the brain that allowed these brain wave patterns to be induced using sound. When one meditates, the brain goes into calm brain wave patterns like alpha (clear thinking), theta (creative thinking) and delta (a deep sleep state which is also present during wakefulness). Brain wave studies demonstrate that Buddhists who have meditated for thirty years are able to go into a deeper meditative state when they listen to brain wave technology (BWT). BWT is done via CDs and with sophisticated machinery which employs EEG electrodes.
Our brain can learn to be calmer. Just like exercise makes our body stronger, BWT helps our brain reorganize at a higher level by creating new neural pathways with increased communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. When the brain works in hemispheric synchronicity, when the left and right hemispheres are dancing beautifully........wow, that is the stuff that Olympian athletes are showing us.
Let's say that you had an unhappy childhood and that you were exposed to many tumultuous events. Neuroscience teaches us that everyone has a threshold for what upsets them. And people who experienced much trauma have a lower threshold before they feel anxious and upset. As a result, they deal with stress (life) by coping with feelings like anxiety, anger, depression, substance abuse.....the list goes one. BWT helps reset your threshold for what upsets you to a higher level. Eventually, it takes more to upset you. Now isn\\\'t that a pleasant idea.
By helping us tap into brain wave patterns like, alpha, theta, and delta, BWT can help our mind get clearer, more focused, more intuitive. In other words, we have the capacity to get smarter and develop imperturbable equanimity.
Let's review brain wave patterns. There are brain wave patterns called BETA, ALPHA, THETA, and DELTA. The most rapid is called a BETA brain wave pattern, which is the pattern of most waking states.
If BETA gets torqued up we experience anxiety which makes learning difficult.
As we become more relaxed, brain activity slows down to an ALPHA state (we are still awake) which is a state of super learning.
Slower still are the THETA waves which enable us to experience increased creativity, increased memory abilities, and what are called integrative experiences (where we make positive changes in the way we see ourselves and the world).
DELTA is an even slower brain wave pattern and is usually a state of dreamless sleep. It is possible to remain awake in DELTA which is a beautiful trance like state. DELTA is the brain wave state when we release highly beneficial substances, including Human Growth Hormone, DHEA, Melatonin, and the correct amount of Cortisol.
So we are in BETA during everyday activity (not usually relaxed), ALPHA as we get more relaxed which helps us be a super learner, THETA as we get more relaxed which helps us be creative, and DELTA is which is a beautiful trancelike state.
It seems to me as I study brain wave technologies that we are entering a very interesting period in medical history. May we one day not give psychological abnormalities a name like ADD, ODD, OCD, Bipolar I, Bipolar II, Addiction......? Might we adopt a highly sophisticated level of thinking about brain function where there is not only medication to alter brain chemistry but also a modality where the patient employs brain entrainment to get their brain to function at a higher level?
Neurofeedback in its myriad forms look like it is presently here for those who are thinking really hard about how we can help patients feel better. The present and future of medicine looks bright to me. I am optimistic.
Written by Roberta Foss-Morgan, D.O. April 30, 2010
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