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Have you ever wished you could just flip a switch in your brain, calm your stress, focus more clearly or fall asleep faster? That's basically what binaural beats can help you do. Let me tell you about it. Welcome to Roots of the Rise with me, sarah Hope, offering bite-sized insights and practices where spiritual wisdom meets practical tools to support your health, healing and happiness. This episode is going to be short and sweet, because this week has been a doozy, but I thought a shorter episode is better than no episode. So a few days ago I talked about different ways to integrate the gains, the awareness that we get through meditation, and today I want to highlight one of my favorite tools binaural beats.

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They've been gaining a lot of attention lately, and for good reason. Research shows they can help reduce anxiety, improve sleep, even enhance memory and focus. And the best part, it's simple. You just listen. Many people feel a real shift in as little as five to 10 minutes. So what exactly are we talking about here? Binaural beats are an audio-based method where one frequency is played in one ear and a slightly different frequency in the other. Your brain doesn't just hear those two sounds, it interprets the difference between them as a third frequency, and that new frequency encourages your brain to shift into certain brainwave states, like alpha, theta or gamma, which are linked to relaxation, creativity, deep rest or sharper focused. This isn't just fringe anymore. Dr Andrew Huberman has covered it on his Huberman Lab podcast, and for me that's always a signal that something has crossed over into being recognized by mainstream neuroscience and Western medicine. I'll link that episode below in the show notes. Personally, I've been using binaural beats for years, both in my own practice and with clients. I recommend them often for sleep struggles, for easing into meditation or simply as a reset when someone is feeling stressed or overstimulated.

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Now, of course, not all frequencies are equal. For example, research has shown that around 40 hertz can improve learning, memory, recall and reaction times. It's what's called the sweet spot of gamma waves and associated with, you know, high-level information processing, peak focus and cognition enhanced perception. It's sometimes called the binding frequency, because it helps unify sensory input, memory and thought into coherent perception. It's also been linked to neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to reorganize and form new connections, and that makes it a great frequency to use before studying or tackling a big project, though it's important to note that you want to listen to it for about 30 minutes before you begin, since your brain needs time to entrain to that frequency, and this is the frequency Dr Huberman stressed as being the ideal place to start if you want to explore binaural beats. But 40 hertz isn't the only one worth knowing.

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Different ranges tend to line up with different states of mind. Alpha waves, for instance, fall between 8 and 12 hertz, and this is associated with states of relaxed alertness, where you are calm but focused. They often happen when we are awake but relaxed, like meditating or dreaming, and the effects of them are associated with reducing stress and anxiety and increasing creativity. It often acts as a bridge between conscious thought and subconscious processing. So listening to alpha waves can be really helpful for easing into meditation, boosting creativity.

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Theta waves between four and eight hertz are the most common waves that we hear are associated with deep relaxation, dream-like awareness. So these often come up during light sleep, during deep meditation or moments of being in flow, also that moment between wakefulness and sleep. So the effects of listening to these waves heighten creativity and intuition. They facilitate emotional processing and can often bring insights or aha moments. So these are great for listening prior to meditation, for visualization exercises, healing work, that kind of thing. Lastly, we have delta waves which is between 0.5 and 4 hertz. So these are associated with deep, dreamless sleep. This is unconsciousness, profound relaxation, and they occur during deep dreamless sleep. This is unconsciousness, profound relaxation, and they occur during deep, restorative sleep or when we are in like very deep meditation or trance-like states. So the effects they are strongly linked to tissue repair and to immune system support, also to deep mental and emotional rest. They allow us to fully recharge as well as unconscious processing. And this is important if you are doing with sleep issues, because people with insomnia or poor sleep, they often have disrupted delta activity.

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Now, uberman noted that some studies found lower frequencies, like this five or seven hertz, weren't really helpful for things like memory recall, especially when layered with ambient noise. And actually a point on that research has shown that it's the case that all binaural beats are more effective as standalone sounds, without ambient noise like rain or waves layered on. Another point to mention is that you really want to listen to binaural beats with headphones. That's really the way to go, because you want each tone to be separated in each ear as opposed to listening to it in surround sound. But regardless of all of that, in my own experience and in what I've seen with clients, slower frequencies can still be incredibly supportive for sleep, meditation or just winding down. I mean, this is where the research and lived experience doesn't always line up perfectly, which is why experimenting on yourself, using your own discernment, is so valuable. You know, and of course not all audio is created equal, so free versions on YouTube or Spotify can be hit or miss, since sometimes there's compression that changes the frequencies. That doesn't mean they won't work, but it's something to be aware of. Some of my clients love the YouTube channel SleepTube, because they have a number of binaural beats tracks on it, and then I personally enjoy using Hemi Sync and Sacred Acoustic tracks for their quality. No kickback here. They're just the ones that I personally enjoy and tend to recommend.

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For me, I was taught to listen before meditation and then turn the beats off once I want to actually begin meditating. That way, the brain has been gently guided into this peaceful you know peaceful receptive state, and the meditation itself can unfold naturally without forcing the nervous system to do anything. By way of this, you know, audio input. So, to wrap this up, binaural beats are a simple, science-backed and accessible way to support your mental, emotional and even cognitive health. Whether you want to reduce anxiety, sleep more deeply or prime your brain for focus, there's likely a frequency that can help. If you're curious, try experimenting. Notice how you feel with different tracks. See what works best for you.

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I have listed in the show notes a number of articles, as well as the Uberman Lab podcast, about this, to give you a place to start. If you want to dig deeper on this topic, all I'll say is that for me and many of my clients, it's been a powerful tool for calming the nervous system and creating the conditions for deeper meditation and rest. That's all for today, short and rest. That's all for today, short and sweet. I thank you for listening. If you have any questions or want to suggest a topic for me to talk about, please email me at rootsoftherise at gmailcom. I would love to hear from you. Until next time, remember, know who you are, love who you've been and be willing to do the work to become who you want to be.