Your ability to focus, plan, feel or do anything is intimately tied to the mix of five different types of brainwaves your brain is producing at any given moment in time. Your brain produces multiple brainwaves simultaneously, but you are at your best when your brainwaves are perfectly aligned with what you are doing. But here’s the problem: Our over-thinking, over-stressed culture forces our brains to stay in the beta wave pattern more than our brains were meant to.
Let’s take a closer look at the five different types of brainwaves so you can more fully understand why it’s a problem when Beta Waves dominate.
- Beta Waves – This is the one you are in right now. It’s associated with being alert, working and stress. It’s not conducive to learning.
- Alpha Waves – Slower than Beta and indicates a deep relaxation. Super learning can take place here. It’s the bridge between your conscious and unconscious mind and it’s associated with being intuitive. This state can be induced through meditation, relaxation and a light trance.
- Theta Waves – Slower still, and normally only experienced when you are drifting off to sleep, waking up or when you dream. Theta waves are associated with increased creativity, accelerated healing and conducive to integrating your emotional experiences and changing behavior. This is the level of the subconscious that holds some of the deepest programming of our behavior.
- Delta Waves – The slowest, normally experienced during deep, dreamless sleep and very deep meditation. These waves are associated with accelerated healing, growth hormone production, and accessing your subconscious in a way not available any other way.
- Gamma Waves – The fastest brain waves, associated with higher mental acuity (not normal thinking or problem solving) and can include flashes of brilliance, sudden bursts of insights, as well as moments of extreme focus and concentration.
