Monaural Beats

Monaural beats are one of the most popular methods of brainwave entrainment today. By listening to a recorded monaural beats track you can encourage your brain to tune into a particular mental state. This has positive and far reaching benefits for both mind and body.

What Is Brainwave Entrainment?

Brainwave entrainment has been around for years but has only recently been understood by scientists and doctors.

When a rhythmic sound is made at a particular frequency, the brain cannot ignore it. Ultimately, the brain can be influenced to achieve a particular state - we call this "synchronization".

One example is the beating of a drum during a tribal activity. Slow beating of a drum causes the brain to produce slow brainwaves that encourage a meditative state. Little wonder then that tribal peoples have been using drums to induce trances for thousands of years.

Another example is simply listening to music. It is well known that music can change your mood. However, music is not an efficient way to synchronize the brain.

Monaural Beats

Monaural beats are just one method of brainwave entrainment. It involves playing tones of two different frequencies through two audio channels i.e. stereo. Both frequencies are played through each channel.

As a result, an interference pattern is formed in the surrounding air (basically a combining of the two sounds) and a resulting beat frequency is perceived by the brain. This beat frequency is what the brain attempts to synchronize to.

Comparison To Binaural Beats

Binaural beats is another popular method of brainwave entrainment. The major advantage of monaural beats over binaural ones is that you do not need a set of headphones to listen to them. One disadvantage is that because the sounds heard are continuous, binaural beats do not have as strong an effect as isochronic tones which produce a more "on/off" type pulsing sound and are therefore more effective.

Where To Get Monaural Beats

Although you can produce your own beats using software, this is not recommended for the novice.

Instead I recommend you check out brainwave entrainment online stores. There you will be able to pick and choose your monaural beats for whatever application you need them for e.g. relaxation, concentration, sleep etc.