Brew: A long long time ago, in the beforetimes of 1996, a cryptic phenomenon gripped the world. With the release of the ever famous Pokemon Red and Blue, many individuals on the early internet passed around claims that 8-bit music in the game, specifically the song playing when the player entered a place called Lavender town, had the capability to make children physically ill. Now today’s topic came from one of our viewers, Mango, who asks, There are these Binaural beats videos on Youtube promising you to get smarter because of brainwaves or… something. Should I listen to this instead of lo-fi? Chill: Oh I know about those! Some people in my zoom yoga class say that Binaural beats are better for meditating! Brew: It begs the question, can audio cues influence our bodies and brains? Can Binaural beats make us smarter? Or is it just Binaural BS? Today’s episode contains audio illusions, so our sincere apologies to those who are hard of hearing. The science behind these phenomena is still coming out, so any positive or negative effects are still being looked at, so take it with a grain of salt. And with that out of the way, Let’s get into it. Now, Lavender Town Syndrome has been debunked thoroughly. It was just an early example of what we call a “creepypasta”, but the question of whether sounds can impact our brainwaves is an interesting one! A Binaural beat is an auditory illusion created by pairs of tones playing at 2 different frequencies, one in each ear. When the two frequencies are picked up by individual ears, your brain tries to mesh them together, and an illusory beat is created which our brains can “tune” to, to various effects. Youtuber Jody Hatton has a useful video to explain, though you will need headphones. Jody: Okay, I’ll play a tone in your left ear. Now we’ll play a slightly different tone in your other ear. There you go, the wobble has returned. However in this case, the two soundwaves aren’t actually interacting. The wobble is produced when the left and right halves of your brain communicate with each other. Brew: This phenomenon was originally discovered by a Prussian physicist and meteorologist by the name of Heinrich Dove in 1839, though it remained as just an acoustic oddity for many years after. It wasn’t until 1973 when Gerald Oster published his paper, "Auditory Beats in the Brain" that the scientific community at large took notice of this strange phenomena. Oster goes through all the different ways that the illusion of a third beat could work mechanically within the brain, but stops short of making any real claims about how it could be used. Chill: So what do they do? Brew: Different groups claim different things, though the most come from individuals making Binaural beats. There is one video on Youtube that claims it can release serotonin and endorphins. Another asserts that it can reduce pain from migraines, and fibromyalgia. Other claims include binaural beats as sleep aids, anxiety management, creativity and mood boosters, physical healing, and anti-aging. There are even claims of negative effects of binaural beats, this video suggests that listening to binaural beats can “strain” your brain the same way that working out for too long can strain your body. Chill: Well that sounds silly. Brew: We’ll see if it’s truly that silly or not in a moment. Those who swear by binaural beats, argue that the difference between the two frequencies can elicit specific reactions in the brain, a process called “entrainment”. Specifically, by listening to the difference in hertz between the two frequencies we force our brains to “attune” to that wavelength, and therefore accomplish certain goals. Chill: Wait, what are brainwaves then? What do they do? Brew: Your brainwaves will allegedly tune their frequency to match the difference in tones between two different frequencies you’re listening to. Frequency is basically just how quickly a wave oscillates between lows and highs, and hertz is the measurement of that oscillation. A high frequency wave would have high peaks and valleys and switches between them very quickly, whereas a low frequency switches between them very slowly. The longer the curve, the weaker a wave, and the less energy it carries and vice versa. Brainwaves, from lowest to highest frequency, are: Delta waves at 0.1 to 4 Hz, are the amount of activity that is typically seen in the brain when one is sleeping. Theta waves at 4-8 Hz, are seen when you’re doing tasks so familiar they almost become automatic, like highway driving, jogging, or taking a shower. Alpha waves at 8-13 Hz, are usually seen immediately after doing a cognitive task, like taking a walk through the park after listening to a difficult lecture. Beta waves at 13-30 Hz, is the amount of electrical energy popping off when one is engaged in a cognitive task, like giving a speech, or teaching someone a concept. Gamma waves, at 30 Hz and above, are associated with conscious perception, and memory, however they are less clearly understood than the others. So, for example, a “delta” binaural beat, will have two tones with a difference in frequency equal to 0.1-4 Hz, pushing your brainwaves into the “delta” range. These greek words are just the names for weak electromagnetic waves that radiate off our brains. As electricity moves back and forth between neurons, bouncing around, passing messages to the various sections of your gray matter as you do things, it generates electromagnetic fields, or EMFs, which are measured in Hz. Fun fact, anything that has electricity moving through it generates an EMF. The difference between radio waves, brainwaves, visible light, x-rays, and etc, is their frequency, or Hz value. Brainwaves are the measurement of the amount of electrical activity in the brain at any given moment, using an Electroencephalography machine, otherwise known as an EEG machine. They’re byproducts of our brains performing cognitive tasks. Think of them like hitting ctrl+alt+del, and looking at your laptop’s CPU. Depending on how much stuff your computer is doing, the more of the CPU is being used. The more stuff your brain is doing, the higher level brainwaves it produces. Chill: Oh no! I hope my brain computer is happy and wavy enough! Quick, I need to learn more things! Brew, help! Brew: Well, you could try listening to a couple of blinks! Not those kinds of blinks. The educational content that you can find with today’s sponsor, Blinkist! I’m sure a lot of us have some aspirations for 2021, one goal I’ll always encourage is to fit more learning into our lives! Chill: But learning takes time, Brew! How am I going to fit that in between my other goals? Brew: That’s what’s so great about Blinkist, they’ve taken the best insights and ideas of more than 3000 nonfiction books and condensed them into bite sized articles, podcasts and audiobooks! Most of which are as short as 15 minute. Recently, I’ve been trying to be more mindful of my daily routines. So I’ve been listening to Atomic Habits by James Clear! If one of your goals for the new year is to introduce some positive change in your life, I couldn’t recommend it more. Head on over to www.blinkist.com/brew! The first 100 people that sign up with our link can get unlimited access with a one week trial, and 25% off a full membership! Chill: Thanks Blinkist, for making thinking as easy as blinking. Blink blink! Brew: Now the question we have to ask is whether or not binaural beats actually do what people think they do. In an article in Frontiers of Neuroscience, entitled “Brain Responses to a 6-Hz Binaural Beat”, authors, Jirakittayakorn and Wongsawat, wanted to see if an individual sitting in a room listening to theta wave binaural beats, could enter a theta state faster than a person sitting in silence. Theta wave activity being that which is typically considered a “meditative” state. Chill: Wait wait wait wait wait, so binaural beats can help my meditation? Brew: Actually yes! The researchers found that those who listened to theta wave binaural beats for 10 minutes showed theta wave states on EEG, and those who sat in silence did not. That is, if you are listening to a theta wave binaural beat with a 250 Hz carrier tone like they did in the study, it’s possible that listening to this can help you enter a meditative state faster than simply sitting in silence. It’s also possible that listening to other theta wave binaural beats could have the same result, however I cannot say for sure until it’s more thoroughly studied in clinical settings. A different study in Frontiers in Psychiatry, “Auditory Beat Stimulation and its Effects on Cognition and Mood States”, looked at a number of different articles on the subject and compared the results. In regard to memory, one study found that listening to 7 Hz binaural beat, aka a theta wave beat, for 30 minutes had a negative impact on verbal recall, however, listening to a different theta wave beat at 5 Hz for 15 minutes twice a day for 15 days, led to a significant increase in recall. It suggests that it’s possible that listening to binaural beats over a prolonged period of time may have beneficial effects. In terms of creativity and attention though, researchers found no significant impacts from binaural beats at any Hz level. Another study by authors Weiland and colleagues, saw a distinct decrease in anxiety in those who listened to alpha wave binaural beats as opposed to those who did not after 20 minutes of stimulation. Another study by authors Scouarnec et al, gave participants with mild anxiety 3 tapes and asked them to listen to the one that helped them the most for 30 minutes each day for a month. One of the tapes contained a binaural beat, and the other two did not. The researchers found that participants, at the end of the month, reported lowered feelings of anxiety, and also generally preferred the tape that contained the binaural beat, suggesting that listening to beats in the delta and theta ranges could help with feelings of mild anxiety. Two studies by Helané Wahbeh ND, have seen a connection between overall mood and binaural beats. They discovered a general decrease in tension, confusion and fatigue after delta wave binaural beats. The authors believe that this might suggest that delta wave binaural beats could help with these moods, however they also noticed an increase in depression in mood questionnaires after stimulation. Chill: You’re telling me that they saw an increase in depression? Brew: Yes, but take these results with a grain of salt. In order for us to reliably say that we “know” something, we need experiments that can be repeated, with the exact same results. With any experiment, results can be influenced by random chance. For example, if I roll a dice to get a 20, and I get it, it’s possible that the die is loaded, but it’s also possible that I’m just lucky. Only after rolling many many times can I be sure if it is or not. Science isn’t about providing answers, it’s about generating questions, and sometimes good science is just asking the same question over and over again. The results of Binaural beat research are still preliminary, and nothing is set in stone. That being said, we have seen that beats at the theta and delta frequencies can influence brainwaves to match those frequencies, though results in other ranges are inconclusive as of yet. Typically these beats are used as meditative aids, and for that use, they seem to do what we need them to do. If we consider a meditative state to be theta or delta wavelengths, then Binaural beats can help us achieve these states faster than simply sitting in silence, reducing anxiety, tension, confusion, and other negative states. In regards to claims of healing, anti-aging and the like, we have seen absolutely no evidence for anyone to claim that. It’s more likely that these claims come from misunderstanding, or misinterpreting what exactly brainwaves are. Brainwaves don’t do anything, they’re more like a side effect of what our brains are doing, it’s like how loud a car engine is has no impact on how fast it’s going. Just because we can see beta wave patterns on an EEG when we’re doing a cognitive task, doesn’t mean that listening to beta waves will make you better at cognition. At the end of the day, there’s no harm from listening to binaural beats to relax, and we have found no negative effects from listening to them. So go nuts. Just, don’t run around saying that listening to a youtube video will help you beat the aging process. You know what, Let’s close with a quip from our very own Mango who says: Congratulations brewsolves for one mil! Wait, what? Well it happened! 1 million subscribers. Oh goodness. Arthur: If you follow us on twitter you might have seen the wave on fanart that came our way for our 500k milestone. Well dang it if they didn’t do it again. Folks, you’re too good to us, and you blow us away every time. Thank you for getting us here, and for celebrating with us. We wouldn't have it any other way. Jenny: Hey guys, you’re not used to hearing my voice because I edit the videos, but I’m really happy we finally reached 1 mil! Whoo! Berrin: Thank you for the 1 million subs, and all the amazing fan art everyone, you guys are incredible! Stephen: How are those fans so damn talented? Thank you so much, just knowing that what I write brings a smile to peoples’ faces makes everything worth it. Adam: We really appreciate all your support the last you know, few years that we’ve been around and while not all of us have been here the whole time we all look forward to all of the milestones ahead of us. Jeremy: Hey everybody it’s me it’s Chill and today I—actually no it’s not, it’s me, it’s Jeremy today and I just wanna thank all of you out there. Your art is amazing and keeps me going. Carter: Hullo! I’m the voice of Grill and Howard! Thanks for watching our videos. If you didn’t I wouldn’t have a job. Rolan: One million fans. This is astounding. Thank you for being part of our universe, it’s only the beginning.
