Liam, think. When the Singaporean authorities want to modify someone’s behavior, they don’t screw around with binaural beats—they’ve got canes.
Binaural beats (BBs), embraced in recent years by the New Age crowd, are a scientific curiosity first described in 1839 by Prussian scientist H.W. Dove. They occur when two slightly different tones are played simultaneously, one in each ear, causing the brain to perceive a beat with a frequency of the difference between those of the two tones. For example, playing a 370-hertz tone in the left ear and a 380-hertz tone in the right yields a beat with a frequency of 10 hertz.
You’d notice something similar if you simply set two tone generators side by side, but it’d be a monaural beat—you could hear it with just one ear. What’s different about binaural beats is that the mixing of the two tones happens in your head.
The BB phenomenon was brought to modern attention by Gerald Oster in a 1973 article in Scientific American. Oster determined that the tones needed to produce the beats were relatively low frequency and the beats themselves were in the range of 1 to 30 hertz. Human brainwave frequencies, as it happens, fall within the same general range.
Now we get to the woolly part. Some researchers have theorized that binaural beats can help change the frequency of your brain waves. Different brainwave frequencies are associated with different mental states. Frequencies from 30 to 14 hertz are the beta brainwave pattern, typically seen when we’re awake and active. Patterns from 13 to 8 hertz are called alpha patterns, and occur when we’re relaxed. From 8 to 4 hertz, we enter the theta stage, observed during REM sleep and meditation, and below that we fall into the deep, dreamless sleep of the delta pattern. Use BBs to slow down somebody’s brain waves, the thinking goes, and maybe you can get them to relax.
Considered individually, some components of this theory aren’t completely wacky. For example, Japanese researchers found that when they played slow binaural beats to subjects hooked up to lab instruments, the subjects’ brainwave activity synced up with the perceived pulse.
However, the real question is whether you can package these interesting test results into an effective mood-relaxation product that can be sold online for $19.95. One common claim is that BB recordings can help reduce anxiety. Some research suggests they can:
n A Duke University study comparing the effects of delta, theta, and beta BBs reported that subjects listening to beta beats performed better on an alertness test, and their mood was better overall.
Maybe it was. However, you can find lots of evidence pointing the other way:
You can guess what I think of all this, which is one reason I’m never going to make money as an entrepreneur. Others have fewer doubts—they claim their BB CDs and MP3s will help you relax, alleviate attention-deficit disorder, simulate drug experiences, and “help your brain induce a state of warmth, exhilaration, tantrism and climax.” If you’re skeptical or just cheap, you can try a free online BB tone generator such as Gnaural or SBaGen. Personally, I’m sticking with proven sonic relaxants—Pink Floyd, let’s say—plus some Baileys just in case.
Send questions to Cecil via StraightDope.com or write him c/o Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago 60611. Subscribe to the Straight Dope podcast at the iTunes Store.