Here’s a scenario. Monday Morning, you arrive at the office, you know you’ve got an important client meeting at 3 pm. What you don’t know is that your client sent you an email at 21:59 last night asking, nay instructing, you to redo the entire presentation. You need to get into the zone, and there’s no time to waste. How do you do it?
You have two options:
Option 1
Take Apex Focus and within 30 minutes, not only will you be in the zone, you’ll own the zone.
Option 2
Get your headphones out and listen to some binaural beats.
When you hear two different tones, one in each ear, each slightly different in frequency, your brain processes a beat at the difference of the frequencies.
Let’s say you’re listening to a sound in your left ear that’s at a frequency of 44 Hertz (Hz). And in your right ear, you’re listening to a sound that’s at a frequency of 40 Hz.
Your brain, however, gradually falls into synchrony with the difference of the two frequencies. Instead of hearing two different tones, you instead hear a tone at 4 Hz.
Binaural beats have been linked to a variety potential health benefits. There are five frequency ranges that have an effect on your brain.
Delta 1 - 4 Hz. Delta is the lowest frequency state, it’s linked to:
Deep sleep
Healing and pain relief
Meditation
Anti-aging: cortisol reduction/DHEA increase
Theta 4 - 8 Hz. Theta binaural beats are linked to:
Meditation
Deep relaxation
Creativity
Alpha 8 - 14 Hz. Alpha waves put your brain into a focused and productive state. Alpha brain waves help you to:
Relax and focus
Reduce stress
Maintain positive thinking
Increase your learning capabilities
Easily engage in activities and the environment because you are in a state of flow
Beta 14 - 30 Hz. beta is a higher frequency brainwave that helps in:
Keeping your attention focused
Analytical thinking and solving problems
Stimulating energy and action
High-level cognition
Gamma 30 - 100 Hz. With a higher frequency than beta, these brain waves help in:
Increased cognitive enhancement
Attention to detail, helping in memory recall
In a number of peer-reviewed studies, 40 Hz (in the Gamma range) binaural beats have been shown to increase focus and attention. The combination of frequencies played to the different ears get integrative in the deep brain centres and increase focus and concentration, partially by increasing the levels of dopamine and acetylcholine(Link to neurochemicals article) in the brain.
One of the recommended ways of using the 40 Hz binaural beats is to listen to them for 5 minutes prior to your working session, rather than for the duration of your focus session. Rather save that technique for if you’re feeling particularly distracted.
It does need to be mentioned that binaural beats don’t work immediately for some people and have only shown cognitive enhancement through continued use.
If you’re looking for other auditory focus tools, consider white, pink or brown noise.