With the hype surrounding binaural beats increasingly rapidly, many have begun to wonder what other positive benefits listening to binaural beats may yield. In fact, some advocates have theorized that listening to binaural beats has the potential to cause drastic physical effects like a change in eye color.
So, can listening to binaural beats change eye color? Binaural beats and self-hypnosis are not capable of manipulating your genetic traits and DNA as the desired change in eye color implies.
While listening to binaural beats has the potential to lead you into a deep state of meditation where you can conceptualize new and vivid ideas and hypnotize yourself, it’s completely impossible to physically change any aspect of your body by simply thinking about it hard enough or long enough.
Though listening to binaural beats won’t change your eye color, there are other changes that may occur within your body and mind after you listen to binaural beats. In the next section, we will overview what binaural beats actually can do for the body.
What Binaural Beats Can Do
Binaural beats, in general, have the ability to impact your brain and health. In fact, there are ways to strategically listen to binaural beats to target certain health benefits. To do so, you need to select frequencies associated with specific brain waves.
With that said, you can’t expect to experience every positive health benefit associated with binaural beats with just any track. Though it would be ideal to experience reduced stress and anxiety, improved relaxation and meditation, and increased focus and motivation, you reasonably can’t expect all of these effects by just listening to one track.
Trigger Brainwaves
There are several types of brainwaves within the brain, but four of the more common in relation to binaural beats are alpha, beta, delta, and theta. Just like soundwaves, brainwaves are measured in frequencies, with each type of brainwave being associated with a specific frequency range.
Each type of brainwave is also linked to certain human behaviors, mindsets, and conditions. By listening to binaural beats within one of these frequencies, you’re stimulating the effects that occur in the brain as a result of having more of those brainwaves activated.
The list below references these four types of brainwaves and the frequencies associated with each.
In the next few subsections, we’ll review how the stimulation of each of these brainwaves through listening to binaural beats can provide the following health benefits.
Reduced Stress & Anxiety
By listening to binaural beats within the range of 8-12 Hz, you’ll be activating alpha waves and encouraging stress and anxiety reduction. When alpha waves become more apparent, you’ll experience a sense of mindfulness where you’ll be focused on the present moment rather than stressors or other major events in your life.
To reach this position of reduced stress and anxiety, you don’t even need to enter into a state of deep meditation. The alpha waves will evoke a sense of calmness and improve your mental coordination while still maintaining your focus on the present moment.
Improved Relaxation & Meditation
As mentioned earlier, alpha waves promote a sense of rest and relaxation while also encouraging self-reflection and serenity. However, there are other brainwaves that you can stimulate to relax and meditate even more successfully.
Theta waves (4-7 Hz) in particular are ideal for intentionally exiting the present moment by allowing you to achieve a state of deep meditation. During this state, you’ll experience a more positive mindset and improve your mood.
By listening to binaural beats at 0.5-4 Hz, you’ll be stimulating delta waves, which also foster a deeper meditation and external awareness.
If you’re looking to improve your relaxation or simply just meditate, listening to binaural beats that trigger theta and delta waves would produce the most benefits.
Increased Focus & Motivation
For greater focus and motivation, the ideal binaural beats frequency would be between 15 and 30 Hz, which are associated with beta waves. This type of wave is linked to increased focus, greater communication skills, and an elevated ability to problem-solve.
In addition to beta waves, theta waves (4-7 Hz) can also prove beneficial for focus and generating new ideas. In fact, theta waves are incredibly useful when it comes to having a vivid imagination and developing new concepts and ideas.
What Binaural Beats Cannot Do
It’s clear that binaural beats have an extreme amount of potential to affect a person’s health for the better. But, just like any type of therapy, supplement, or strategy, there are limitations for what they can actually do for you.
Simply put, listening to binaural beats isn’t the end all be all. They aren’t a magic cure for physical health conditions and cannot cause any physical changes to the body or to your genetics.
Physical Changes in the Body
Changing your DNA is technically possible and occurs as a result of your environment, diet, and other factors. Despite this, these genetic changes are a result of physical factors that the body encounters on a daily basis, not simply thoughts.
Binaural beats enter you into a trance-like hypnotic state in which you’re able to meditate and focus on the present moment. But, no matter how hard you try, simply thinking a thought cannot change any physical aspect of your body.
Just because you spend 30 minutes a day intensely thinking about changing your eye color doesn’t mean you’ll wake up one day to notice that your eye color finally changed to your desired color.
The only things that your thoughts are capable of changing are your mindset, attitude, and other aspects of your personality.
Cure Diseases
Health conditions and diseases occur as a result of your physical environment, personal health habits, changes to your genetics, or simply contracting a disease. This is a circumstance in which mind over matter does not apply in the slightest.
The only things that can treat or cure diseases and other health conditions are antibiotics, medications, therapies, change in behavior, or time. You cannot cure a disease by wishing or thinking it away, no matter how persistent you are.
Though you can’t treat diseases with binaural beats, you can use this strategy to reduce the symptoms of some health conditions. Here are some examples of how binaural beats can assist with certain conditions.
- Reduce anxiety and stress associated with anxiety disorders and other mental health conditions
- Focus on meditation and relaxation to ease pain or discomfort
- Use self-hypnosis to target health habits (eating, exercising, etc.)
- Improve focus and motivation for individuals with depression or low mood
- Encourage the stimulation of brainwaves associated with deep sleep and meditation for those with insomnia or other sleep disorders
Conclusion
It’s 100% impossible to change your DNA or alter genetic traits (like eye color) simply by listening to binaural beats. However, the deep meditation and self-hypnosis that occurs as a result of listening to binaural beats have great potential for improving your health overall. Here is a list of what binaural beats are actually capable of doing for your mind.
- Developing a mindset that consists of significantly less stress and anxiety
- Promoting relaxation and meditation for improved mood and sleep
- Increasing focus and motivation to stimulate the brain’s functioning and thought process
Sources
Scientific American: What is the function of the various brainwaves?