Beta Brain Waves: Alert, Awake, and Stressful States
Posted by Drew | : Beta Brainwaves, Boost Brain Power, Brainwaves
Out of all the brainwave patterns, beta brainwaves are most commonly found in awake individuals. They are the fastest brainwave pattern, ranging from 12 Hz to Hz to 38 Hz - [anything beyond 38 Hz is usually classified as the gamma brainwave rhythm]. The left-hemisphere of our brains, involved with the production of beta brainwaves, has been linked to conscious thought and being “fully awake.” Virtually all individuals besides children, and people with A.D.D., are in beta brainwave states upon awakening.
Why do you need beta brainwaves?
Beta brainwaves are what is used by your brain to help you function in society. If you were without any beta brainwaves, you would be unable to function while you are awake. You would basically be an awake, “brain-dead zombie.” As you are reading this article, your brain is generating beta brainwaves. Activities such as: reading, writing, calculations, and work which involves thinking, all require your brain to amp up the production of beta brainwaves.
Other things such as: reasoning, alertness, logical thinking, and critical thinking are all linked to the production of beta brainwaves. Your brain also uses beta brainwaves to memorize things, plan, think deeply, interpret data, and to organize things [including your thoughts].
The older you are, the more beta brainwaves you’ll have.
Beta brainwaves are very common in adults in comparison to children. Therefore, beta brainwaves are considered to be a “grown up” type of brainwave. Scientists have long understood that most children spend most of their waking hours in theta and alpha brainwave states. Researchers have also understood that as children get older and learn to be more “mature” or “grown up,” the amount of their beta brainwaves increase. With very few exceptions, most brains of adults commonly generate lots of the beta rhythm.
Usually, beta brainwaves increase in children when they begin going to school. This makes perfect sense, due to the conscious, left-brain promotion at schools. You are taught to be highly logical and creativity usually isn’t rewarded - except in art or music classes. All of the activities that children do such as: solve math problems, write papers, read books, all increase the production of beta brainwaves and allow the alpha and theta rhythms to slowly dwindle. Nearly every skill that kids learn at school: memorization, planning, logical thinking, and the interpretation of information do a great job at enhancing and promoting the production of beta brainwaves.
Memorization: Beta Brainwaves vs. Alpha Brainwaves
The act of memorizing facts and data is a very different memorization process compared to when an individual is in an alpha brainwaves state. Therefore, I thought it would be helpful to give you a general overview of memorization in both the alpha brainwaves and the beta brainwaves. The most common way for most individuals to memorize something is via “rote learning.” In fact, the whole education system in the United States [and most other countries] is based on “rote-learning.”
Can you remember back to when you were a small child? If you can, think back to when you began to learn multiplication math tables. Likely, you repeated the tables over-and-over again until they were finally embedded into your brain. You probably wrote or vocally repeated the entire multiplication table until it was finally ingrained into your memory.
What’s happening here is that you’re forcing information down your conscious, left-brain and after constant repetition, that information gets transferred to your subconscious. With that said, you are only able to store information into your subconscious mind if you are able to produce alpha brainwave rhythms, not beta brainwaves.
So, by using “rote-learning” for memorizing the multiplication table is like breaking down your front door (beta brainwaves) to get inside your house instead of just using a key (alpha brainwaves). For this reason, you need to sometimes “beat yourself up,” or spend countless hours with “repetition” before you finally memorize the complete multiplication table. This is why most adults can usually benefit greatly from some extra alpha brainwave production.
The memorization process while you are already in the alpha brainwave state is a completely different experience. Memorizing in alpha, as you may have already guessed, is much easier than shoving information down through your beta brainwaves. Memorizing in beta is like choking down food that you don’t like when eating dinner. Memorizing in an alpha state much more natural. It is like eating a food you really like - it goes down smooth and is easy to retain. This is why affirmations are so much more effective when you are in an alpha or a theta brainwaves state - they are easily implanted into the subconscious brain. In the alpha brainwave state, there’s absolutely no need for “rote-learning;” or constant repetition to memorize.
Next time you are trying to memorize something, try it in the alpha brainwave state
The next time that you have something you need to memorize or learn, slow down your brainwave rhythm from beta to the alpha rhythm. If you’re like most people, you’ll realize that the memorization process takes much less time, is a lot easier, and feels completely natural - because you eliminate the need of constant “cramming” or repetition.
If you are looking for more information on how to increase your alpha brainwaves, I recommend reading my article: “Understanding The Alpha Brainwave,” in which I provide some examples. Another phenomenal and quick way to increase the production of your alpha brainwaves is to utilize the technology of brainwave entrainment. I recommend Neuro-Programmer 2 Professional, due to the high rate of success that many people [including myself] have experienced with the software.
Slower brainwaves linked to being “down to Earth”
Another interesting fact is that individuals who feel connected to nature and are “down to Earth,” usually have slower brainwave patterns in the alpha, and sometimes even the theta brainwave ranges. These “down to Earth” people actually have brainwaves that are much closer to children than most other adults. And this does not reflect their maturity level, it just resembles that they actually show the exact same type of appreciation for nature as children.
The main problem with most highly-mature individuals or adults is that they actually generate too much beta brainwaves in relation to alpha and theta brainwave rhythms. This is why they don’t feel the same energy and youthfulness that many hope to recreate in their lives. It’s funny because recreating this state can be relatively easy with brainwave entrainment or via practicing meditation.
Ever feel stressed out? Blame High-Beta brainwaves
Higher beta brainwaves usually above 18 Hz can result in feelings of: tenseness, anxiety, stress, and nervousness. When your brainwave levels increase above 30 Hz, they’ll interfere with your ability to think clearly and effectively process, and understand your own thoughts. I have personally experienced stress to such a high-degree in the past, that I literally felt as if I had little control over my life due to the constant rapid generation of completely random - sometimes unwanted - thoughts.
High-beta brainwaves and random, stressful thoughts
When your brainwave levels climb the charts, up to the high beta brain wave frequencies, neurons (brain cells) begin firing at random and in an unorganized pattern. This leads to a highly-unfocused, completely disorganized, and confusing state of mind to be in. I can testify for this claim, because I personally have experienced this state. This is another reason that A.D.D. / A.D.H.D. can be experienced in high-beta brainwave states. When your brainwave state remains in high-beta for any extended period of time, you will likely experience a “nervous breakdown.”
Lateralization and high-beta brainwaves
In the majority of people, either the left or right hemisphere is more dominant than the other. This “dominance” by one half of the brain is defined as “brain lateralization.” As your amount of beta brainwaves increase, brainwaves from both sides of your brain can easily get thrown out of sync and “brain lateralization” can be significantly affected.
Slower brainwaves and neural communication
When you allow your brainwave patterns to slow down to the alpha and theta ranges, their is usually much more brain synchronization and communication amongst your neurons. The neurons in your brain begin to efficiently communicate and fire in a healthy, pattern. They aren’t firing at random like they do when you’re in a stressful state of mind.
Say goodbye to all stress and worries
When you do in fact manage to shift down to a theta or alpha brainwaves state, you’ll feel peaceful, calm, refreshed, and natural. Most things that stressed you out in the beta brainwave state may not even bother you anymore. There’s really not many worrisome-type thoughts that ever surface when you’re in an alpha brainwave state.
Are your thoughts becoming a nuisance or self-defeating?
Are you ever excited about beginning a difficult, challenging project? Well, have you ever heard a self-defeating or negative little voice from within that emerges with rapid thoughts telling you that you can’t do it? It’s almost like a voice trained to attack our dreams or any big goals that we have. It may even begin asking questions like: “Do you really think you can do it?” “Isn’t that task a little bit too tough for you?” “How are you possibly going to do that?” All of those questions are asked with hopes that you’ll give in to that little [annoying] voice inside your head and quit your project.
High-beta brainwaves throw away dreams
When you allow your mind to “give in” to this little pestering voice, you actually can talk yourself out of rewarding tasks before you even start! This is terrible. Before long, if you allow this voice to control your life, you satisfy for much less than you know you are capable of doing and accomplishing in this lifetime. Giving in to this voice is like throwing all of your aspirations and dreams out the window and settling for mediocrity. This is incredibly depressing and self-defeating.
High-beta brainwaves make you “sweat the small stuff”
Sometimes, you need to lay down the law and get that voice to shut up! First of all, realize that the bothersome voice is due to an increase of high-beta brainwaves. It’s not really a state you want to be in for any extended period of time. When you allow high-beta brainwaves to overtake your mind, it goes into a rapid-thinking “overdrive” brainwave state. This high-beta brainwave state will make you think deeply about little. Basically, these brainwaves make you “sweat the small stuff.”
Reliving the past or fearing the future
In most cases, high-beta brainwaves cause individuals to either: remember negative events or experiences in the past OR imagine a scary, fearful-type future. This obviously, easily creates states of high-anxiety, self-doubt, and negativity. If you’re like most people, you don’t want to experience depression or anxiety… So, all you really need to do is slow down your high brainwave patterns.
Insomnia and beta brainwaves
Have you ever laid down on your bed with expectations to fall asleep, but you never were able to fall completely asleep? You end up spending most of the nighttime hours tossing, turning, and feel like you need to “try harder” in order to fall asleep. Your body may even be physically tired, but for some frustrating reason, you can’t seem to quiet down your brain. Thoughts flood your mind and no matter what you do, your brain cannot seem to access the lower states of theta and delta brain waves that allow you to sleep.
Missing alpha brainwaves is like driving stick-shift without a gear
This is due to the fact that most people’s brains shift from beta down to the slower alpha brainwaves right before falling asleep. And shorty after accessing alpha, they fall into a deep theta or delta brainwave state of sleep. When your brain is in a prolonged state of high-beta, alpha brainwave production is significantly hindered or diminished.
Because of this, your brain has a difficult time shifting to alpha before sleep and when you finally are able to fall asleep - you inefficiently shift from beta to theta or delta - while skipping alpha. Think of it like driving a stick-shift [manual] vehicle with 3rd gear missing. You need to shift your brainwaves from 4th gear down to 1st, but 3rd is missing. You can bet that you will experience some difficulty and problems like insomnia.
A personal experience with insomnia
I used to have a lot of difficulty dealing with insomnia. I would be thinking about my future, past experiences, stressful experiences, the health of others, my personal health, etc. My brain was flooded with rapid, uncontrollable thoughts that really hurt the quality of my sleep. As a result of this “rapid thinking,” I often times wouldn’t be able to fall asleep until the early morning hours.
Insomniacs should avoid certain substances
At the time, I was completely unaware of beta brainwaves, and had no idea that shifting my brain to a slower pattern like alpha would significantly help with my insomnia dilemma. It really wasn’t until I began using Neuro-Programmer 2 Professional that I was able to consistently get a healthy night’s sleep. The only interference with slowing brainwaves are substances like caffeine, stimulants, or anything increasing beta brainwaves. Substances like stimulants change your brainwave patterns and make is very difficult to sleep after ingesting them.
“Natural leaders” and decision making
You probably know people who usually make terrible decisions when they are stressed out or in a state of panic. People who are born “natural leaders” are almost always able to think clearly, stay calm, cool, and collected even when faced with scary, frustrating, or panic-type events and situations. This is why they are “natural leaders,” they are able to react in a calm manner to any situation - no matter how stressful.
Why beta brainwaves are healthy
With all of the unhealthy effects surrounding “high-beta brainwaves,” it is not at all surprising to me that many individuals come to believe that all “beta brainwaves” are terrible and that other brainwave patterns are always better. However, this could not be further from the truth! There are tons of benefits to having a healthy production of beta brainwaves.
Though high-beta brainwaves are far from optimal, regular (low to medium) beta brainwaves are healthy. Beta brainwaves are the best brainwaves for concentration, critical-thinking, scheduling, planning, and for the interpretation of data. And our entire education system involves learning how to do most tasks in beta brainwave states. Most business operations and companies are carried out by using the logical beta-brainwaves.
With that said, it can be very difficult for some individuals to eliminate stress and quiet their “inner self-defeating voice” - especially when you’ve had negative thought patterns for an extended period of time. The most effective way to slow those high-beta brainwave patterns that’s worked great for me is Neuro-Programmer 2 Professional in combination with activities like meditation, self-hypnosis, and other positive lifestyle changes such as: eating good “brain foods.”
Other than the mentioned activities, there are some great techniques that you can use to help you relax that I’ve written in my article 20 Ways To Murder Stress: Killer Relaxation Tips. So, next time you notice that you’re getting stressed out, you should be able to relax knowing that there are so many solutions towards reducing your high-beta brainwaves to slower, more relaxing ones. You’ll feel great, healthy, and have the necessary technique to remain calm, cool, and collected in even the most intense situations. This control over your beta brainwaves gives you full control over your reality and actually boosts your brain power to make coping with stress much easier.
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