Healthy Mind

Brain Waves and Your Healthy Mind

A healthy body and a healthy mind are two different states of health. The mind may be connected to the body but the body is of the physical while the mind operates in metaphysical with waves and vibrations.

Brain Wave Patterns 101

The first thing you need to know is that twenty-four hours a day, nerve cells in your brain are generating electrical impulses that fluctuate rhythmically in distinct patterns called brain wave patterns—patterns closely correlated with your thoughts, your emotions, your state of being, the functioning of the various systems of your body, and, in essence the entire quality of your life!

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There are four categories of brain wave patterns. The most rapid is called a beta brain wave pattern, the pattern of normal waking consciousness. Beta is associated with concentration, arousal, alertness, and cognition.

At its highest, most rapid levels, though, beta is associated with anxiety, disharmony, and unease. (Perhaps the ability to slow yourself down from those levels might be beneficial??)

As you become more relaxed, your brain wave activity slows into what is called an alpha brain wave pattern. Alpha patterns vary from deep alpha, a state of deep relaxation often referred to as the twilight state between sleep and waking, to the higher end of alpha which is a more focused yet still very relaxed state.

Beta brain wave patterns Beta (14-30 Hz)

Concentration, arousal, alertness, cognition

Higher levels associated with anxiety, unease, feelings of separation, fight or flight

Alpha brain wave patterns
Alpha (8-13.9 Hz)

Relaxation, superlearning, relaxed focus, light trance, increased serotonin production

Pre-sleep, pre-waking drowsiness, meditation, beginning of access to unconscious mind

Theta brain wave patterns
Theta (4-7.9 Hz)

Dreaming sleep (REM sleep)
Increased production of catecholamines (vital for learning and memory), increased creativity

Integrative, emotional experiences, potential change in behavior, increased retention of learned material

Hypnagogic imagery, trance, deep meditation, access to unconscious mind

Delta brain wave patterns
Delta (.1-3.9 Hz)

Dreamless sleep
Human growth hormone released

Deep, trance-like, non-physical state, loss of body awareness

Access to unconscious and "collective unconscious" mind, greatest "push" to brain when induced with Holosync®

When you are absorbed in a good book (or a television show) you are probably in alpha. And, as I already mentioned, alpha is often associated with what is known as "superlearning"—the ability to learn, process, store and recall large amounts of information quickly and efficiently.

Slower still are theta waves. Theta is best known as the brain wave state of dreaming sleep, but it is also associated with a number of other beneficial states, including increased creativity, some kinds of superlearning, increased memory abilities, and what are called integrative experiences (in which we make broadly-based positive changes in the way we see ourselves, others, or a certain life situation).