I am sometimes asked about the best headphones to use for listening to meditation and other entrainment audios. I wrote about this here: best headphones and have recently updated that article.
In fact all you need from headphones is that they are relaying the music in stereo which I think all of them do these days. Still it is nice to get a recommendation from users. So I have suggested the some good headphones at various prices from expensive to very cheap. I have also reviewed ear phones as many people prefer them.
Meditation is often called mindfulness these days because it sounds more secular. It is known to make a great difference to ones mental and physical health. Do try it and not just for a couple of days.
If you commit to to a mindfulness session every day for a month you will be surprised to find that it has made you feel much calmer and happier too. Worth doing don’t you think?
You can do
wnload a meditation like the one in the video from here: Meditation mp3 download.
by Liz B on April 16, 2012
Older people have been thought to have problems sleeping. That is what the text books and various web sites about sleep tell us. But a large survey published in the journal ’Sleep’ showed that sleep problems in older adults are a bit of a myth. In fact sleep problems and tiredness were found to be worse for middle aged women than for older age groups.
“Where there were sleep problems these were associated with illness or depression rather than age. Complete-case analysis included 155,877 participants who responded to questions related to Self-Reported Sleep Disturbance and Self-Reported Tiredness/Lack of Energy.”
“Advancing age was not associated with increased Self-Reported Sleep Disturbance or Self-Reported Tiredness/Lack of Energy. These results suggest that the often-reported increase in sleep problems with age is a nonlinear phenomenon, mediated by factors other than physiologic aging.
This is useful information for older adults. If your sleep is disturbed this may be caused by underlying health problems which need to be investigated and treated. So don’t let your doctor tell you otherwise. If your doctor thinks your insomnia is due to your age politely show him or her the evidence of this study.
by Liz B on January 11, 2012
In these difficult times many of us are suffering from anxiety. It isn’t helped by being constantly wired to the various communication devices; smart phone, iPad, laptop we are hardly ever alone any more. I know that some people can’t even go to bed without their phone!
How can we be calm when we are always switched on? Honestly how often do you check your phone messages?
In the past people were able to think without help from the rest of the world. Who was it that wrote “What is this world if full of care I have no time to stand and stare?’ A jingle but how apposite for today!
If you are suffering from worry and anxiety but you would like to be calm start by detaching yourself from your communications systems for a least an hour a day and for 8 hours at night!
Your anxiety isn’t to be ignored. It is dangerous to your health to be in a state of tension all the time.
If you need some help one way to improve anxiety is to listen to brainwave entrainment audios. You can find them on line eas
ily enough but not all a good listening experiences. I have heard brainwave entrainment audios that are headache inducing!
Ours are embedded in background music that makes them pleasant to listen to, although you should always be able to hear the tones.
Our anti anxiety program includes two anti anxiety audios. One is a simple 30 minute alpha relaxation at 8.4 hz. The idea here is to relax the mind and induce calm.
The second uses a frequency of 2 to 15 hz which is known as SMR. Anxiety conditions often show a dominant brainwave pattern on one side of the brain and SMR can even this out and induce calm.
If you listen to each anxiety reduction audio every day while relaxing with your eyes closed you will find it really does help you to overcome your anxiety and calm down.
Learn more about this audio program for anxiety:
Anxiety Reduction Audios
by Liz B on August 17, 2011
We have known for some time that drinking alcohol into the late evening will interfere with sleep. Now another study to be published in the Nov. 2011 issue of the journal “Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research”confirms this.
If you want uninterrupted sleep don’t drink alcohol. You might fall asleep easily when you have been drinking but you will most likely wake several times during the night and will not feel as rested the following day.
The recent study was carried out on Japan with 100 young men. They were followed for 3 weeks as they drank 3 different kinds of alcoholic drinks during the hour and 40 minutes prior to bedtime. During the period of the study the men’s heart was monitored and it was found that drinking interferes with the restorative functions of sleep.
“It is generally believed that having a nightcap may aid sleep, especially sleep initiation,” said Seiji Nishino, director of the Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology Laboratory at Stanford University School of Medicine in California. “This may be true for some people who have small amounts of alcohol intake. However, it should be noted that large amounts of alcohol intake interfere with sleep quality and the restorative role of sleep and these negative consequences may be much larger during chronic alcohol intake,”
Normally when we sleep at night, the part of the nervous system that is responsible for ‘rest-and-digest’ activities dominates. But the alcohol seemed to interfere with this, which can result in insomnia, difficulty getting to sleep, early-morning awakening, lack of a sense of deep sleep and difficulty maintaining sleep, the researchers said. “The results of this study suggest that ethanol interferes with the restorative functions of sleep,” the study’s authors concluded.
Of course we have known this for years but it is good to be reminded again that alcohol may be one of the reasons we are feeling tired. So a good sleep tip is to give up your evening tipple.
A problem I can see with this study is that the subjects are Japanese. Asian men are known to have a problem digesting alcohol. It would be useful if theis study could be replicated with non Asians. It would also be very helpful if for once women were part of such a study. We need to know if women are more or less affected by drinking, especially in the evening.
