While I have been reading on these binaural sounds (also called binaural beats) for some time now, I never actually tried any of them until today. Having just had a restless night of less than 4 hours of sleep behind me, my mind returned once again on this subject.

First some history. The so-called ‘brainwave entrainment’ phenomena these binaural sounds produce has been experimented with since quite some time, according to Wikipedia the earliest record dates back to 1839. Research began in earnest in the 70’ies and has since been used to help with meditation or as a help to fall asleep. More recently there has been a hype of them for improving power naps and various other uses, but the more specific the claimed benefits are the less evidence is usually provided. For general relaxation they have been around quite some time however.

How are they supposed to work? Binaural beats essentially works by playing a different frequency to each ear, and for some reason that is totally beyond me our brain frequency tends to move towards the difference between them. If for example I would play a 260 hertz frequency to my left and 255 hertz to my right ear, my brain would eventually adopt the 5 hertz difference. As the brain frequency can be seen as a measure of brain activity and wakefulness, the proposed use of binaural beats for us is therefore to lower brain frequency for relaxation and falling asleep. There have been experiments in raising them as well in order to help focusing and learning, but this is a) well outside of the scope of this website and b) evidence is a bit patchy on that side.

So much for the theory, but do they really work? Curiosity won me over today and I got my hands on a 30 minute MP3 recording designed to induce sleep. The MP3 file I used starts with 5 minutes of higher range alpha waves and then gradually lowers the frequency to low theta waves. Additionally it had a white noise in the background to block out environment noises.

Having just downloaded the ‘sleep sound’ file to my computer, I decided – unwisely – to test it right there and not bother loading it to my iPod. Plugging in at computer at desk with my headphones, I’m trying to relax on my chair. The buzzing sound seems awkward at first, but perhaps similar to the monotonous sound of a washing machine in the other room it quickly fades into the background (the hypothetical kind of washing machine without spinning mode at the end that is!).

31 minutes after starting the playback, I awoke. My cheek has a large red spot where my head lying next to the keyboard and my back hurts fiendishly from my awkward posture. The media player I used to play the recording had the repeat option on and restarted at the higher frequency beginning, pulling me out of slumber land. Despite my aching body, I felt surprisingly good and refreshed after approximately 20 minutes of sleep.

My lessons learned for the day?

1. Do such tests while lying comfortably in bed, not at the desk!
2. Switch the repeat function off unless there is continuity in frequency from end to beginning.

This certainly needs more testing, but is an encouraging start. While it doesn’t seem like a big feat to fall asleep after a restless night with less than 4 hours of sleep, the fact that I slept in that awkward posture, with (presumably) increasing back-pain, and awoke within 1 minute of the frequency going back to ‘alpha’ levels does show that there may be something to it. A much more significant test would be however if it can make me fall asleep if I go to bed a full hour earlier than in my usual rhythm – and do that, say, at least 5 random days? I’ll keep you posted, check back to the sleep sounds category in two weeks!