Does your mind need a tune-up? Are you plagued with anxiety? Are you sick of that constant annoying internal chatter? Do you strive to become calm, peaceful, wise, and able to navigate effectively through our busy modern lives? Do you need a brain massage?

Like many people I try to meditate towards achieving this peaceful state. I have practiced meditation for many years in a haphazard, inconsistent, and irregular pattern achieving a varied level of success.

It is undeniable that stilling the mind helps. But actually stilling the mind is the challenge. Always the internal chatter associated with our daily life interrupts.

As I try to sink into the deeper levels of consciousness my thoughts appear; sometimes I can notice them then let them drift away; other times I get caught up in the churning thoughts for awhile until I jolt myself back to the practice of stilling my mind.

So I have just come across binaural beats. I don’t know why I have never heard about these before, because it is not a new concept, discovered in 1839 by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove according to Wikipedia. These are now produced and published by several organisations of which Holosync™ is one. So what is Holosync™? This blog post describes it well I think.

Here is a beautiful example:

So the concept is that you listen to the sound track, wearing stereo headphones, that have various soothing sounds such as rain, gongs, bells, birds chirping, the sea, etc. But underneath the soothing sounds are sound waves that correspond with the natural brain waves and these ‘sync’.

There are various apps that can be downloaded and of course most require payment. But there are free trials that will give you an idea of the experience.

The first time I listened to a recording, I managed to easily still my mind and cease the ridiculous chatter. The sounds of rain and bells resonated through my brain. I felt like I had been given a brain massage. It was indeed bliss. This tool allowed me to reach the calm state with a still mind much quicker and more effectively than just trying to observe my breath.

So today I decided to do a little bit of research into the topic and found lots of information and demonstrations on YouTube as well as lots of controversial opinion about it all.

What to make of all this then? I suppose it is just another step in the journey towards being at peace in this world. Many people in our society are plagued with anxiety and this is completely understandable. So any tool that helps people to manage their doubt is a good thing I think. And most of us are not Zen Masters able to devote hours towards this pursuit. So 15 to 20 minutes spent listening to gorgeous sounds is manageable in my busy day and if there are additional benefits that lead to more clam, balanced and mindful living then that is a bonus.