Brain Waves

In my last blog on Innovation, I promised that this post would be about brain waves and a new method to induce Alpha brain waves -so important to anyone wanting to ‘think outside the box’.

First of all, the strange picture on the left is of a person having an Ectroencephalograph [EEG] test of brain activity. Our whole nervous system is made up of neurons that can transmit information by passing electrical signals from one neuron to the next. The EEG records fluctuations resulting from electrical currents flowing along the neuron circuits in our brains. The recordings show what we call 'brain waves' - variations of strong and weak signals, differentiated by the distance between their peaks. The picture on the right shows the different types of brain waves and identifies the electrical activity going on in the brain when they were recorded.

Scientists measure the number of peaks in a second or Hertz [Hz] of brain waves, so that the Beta waves, which have between 13 to 30 peaks per second, is 13 – 30 Hz, Alpha wave frequency is 8 – 13 Hz,  Theta waves, 4 – 8 Hz and Delta wave peak frequency is less than 4 peaks per second.    

It didn’t take long after the different brain waves were classified before those in the field began to do experiments to try to induce the brain neuron circuits to take on a desired type of brain wave. One method they have come up with, is using sound waves.

 

Have you ever wondered why we have two ears? With only one, we can hear all right but we don't know where the sound is coming from. If a sound was coming from your right side for instance, it takes a measurable instant longer for it to reach your left ear. So our whole hearing system is exquisitely designed to distinguish between differences in the sounds coming into each ear. It’s called binaural hearing and a method has been discovered using our binaural hearing system to affect our brain wave frequency. 

For example, if you feed a pure tone with a frequency of 110 Hz into one ear, and a tone of 100 Hz into the other ear, when they mix they create a beat frequency of 10 Hz. The diagram on the left  shows that when the two top frequencies mesh, sometimes the sound is amplified and sometimes it's cancelled out and together they crate a slow beat - in this case, a beat of 10 Hz.  Humans can't hear a sound of 10 Hz but amazingly it can pull, or draw along after it, the EEG brain wave associated with Alpha brain waves.  

Using this method of mixing frequencies of slightly different tones into our separate ears with a small headset, we can actually  induce whatever brain waves we choose.  The result may be increase intuition or heightened creativity, increased learning ability, elimination of insomnia, induction of lucid dream states and so on.  

If you are interested in getting into a mind altered state without drugs – using the binaural beat system is very simple - you just buy the stereo CD's with the brain wave frequency you want on line . I find it all so incredible that trying it myself is the only way I will believe it. I’ll be interested in any feedback.  Rie

   

Innovation

I’ve often wondered about our amazing brains and how sometimes an idea or an insight just seems to pop into our consciousness from out of the blue.  That’s what needs to happen in a situation where you want to be innovative but trying to come up with a creative new idea doesn’t work. It can almost be compared to what happens to those with ADD – attention deficit disorder.  The more they try to concentrate on something, the less successful they are at it. So, if concentrating on a problem and trying to think of an innovative solution is the wrong thing to do – do you just relax and hope a creative solution pops into your mind?  The answer to that is a surprising Yes!

If you look for examples of companies that are very successful at coming up with original new ideas for products, probably the 3M company is one of the best. So far their employees have come up with more than 50 thousand different commodities for sale from post-it notes to packaged materials for lab tests! How do they do it?  It turns out that the company does encourage its staff to relax by taking regular breaks and they even provide lounges and gaming equipment where they can socialize and change their focus by doing something different. To top off the week they also have Friday afternoon beer and cake mixers – a very popular event. A successful electrical engineering company that is copying 3M’s lead in creating relaxing spaces for their staff, has added the stipulation that employees write any creative ideas they have on white boards available everywhere so others can see them.

So, although taking time to relax and being in contact with others proves to be the best way to elicit creative ideas, it is still pretty much of a mystery why it works and how to turn it on. The answers, in this ever more competitive world, have become so important for success that science has stepped in and is beginning to whittle away at discovering what is going on.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that measures where brain activity is occurring when you’re solving a problem logically, shows clearly that the dominant [usually the left hemisphere] of the brain is active. That’s no surprise but when you need solutions that require thinking ‘outside the box’ you must use the non-dominant right hemisphere. It is often described as the artistic side of the brain that is not logical or aware of time and seems to be involved in all sorts of things we are not conscious of.Taking an Electroencephalogram [EEG]  of the brain catches its activity in real-time and prints out a wavy pattern of electrical voltages we call brain waves. A busy brain occupied when we are performing complicated tasks, shows Beta waves in the brain and when you are relaxed, playing or walking or daydreaming, the brain waves are different and designated as Alpha waves. These distinctive Alpha waves are so related to the state we’re in when we get insights that when a scientist records the Alpha pattern occurring, they can predict the person’s likelihood of coming up with a novel idea before it actually happens.   

So the key to boosting innovative breakthroughs seems to be to increase Alpha brain waves. So relax.  My next blog is going to be about brain waves and new methods of how to induce Alpha wave activity. A word of caution from Steven Johnson is that a lot of bright ideas are not really useful and it takes time to invent something new.   Rie