One question people often ask when researching binaural beats is whether or not there are side effects to using the recordings. And you can’t blame anyone for wondering, when you consider that brain entrainment changes brain state – even if it does so positively.
A study has shown that the use of binaural beats during surgery correlates with lower anxiety and reduced systolic blood pressure. The research was carried out on senior patients undergoing cataract surgery. Cataract surgery was chosen because the surgery is typically carried out with local anesthesia, and therefore patients will be awake during the procedure.
One area that binaural beats have been subject to numerous studies is for depression, anxiety, stress and conditions related to the inability to relax.
This particular study took place in 2007, with the goal of assessing the psychologic and physiologic effects of binaural beats. Carried out by the Helfgott Research Institute, each subject was given a CD containing delta (0-4 Hz) binaural beats to listen to daily for 60 days.
We get a number of emails from people asking how long it takes binaural beats to work before they buy, so I thought it was worth posting up on the blog on this topic.
The big debate in the brainwave entrainment world over the last two years has been are isochronic tones better than binaural beats – are they more effective than BBS at brainwave entrainment?. The short answer is no, but there are considerable differences between the two, which we will explore in this post.
