02
5 Tips to get the most out of your brainwave meditation session.
Filed Under (brainwave meditation) by admin on 02-09-2008
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
On the internet you often see incredible claims with regard to brainwave entrainment and brainwave meditation. You can read slogans like ‘meditate deeper than a Zen monk’ or ‘Meditate profoundly within minutes’ or even ‘No year long training required’. And although all this is partially true, most of it is a lie.
Yes, you will get entrained and yes, you will probably go deep.
But you also do this when you go to sleep. So do you meditate then? No! So brainwave entrainment on itself does not guarantee you anything.
So the trick is to combine what people have studied for years during meditation and use this wonderful new tool that is brainwave entrainment. And yes, used in this way, it will make you meditate fairly quickly with almost no prior training. Here are some guidelines that will greatly enhance your experience of brainwave meditation.
- Relax
All meditation starts here. Relax. Relax all your muscles.
This is a basic skill and it must be mastered. In the beginning of each entrainment track, your brainwaves are slowly entrained towards the target frequencies of that particular track. This is the ideal time to slowly relax your muscles.
Feel every muscle of your body relax. Feel the tension flow out of your body.
You can also do the same for your emotions and thoughts: you can sense your lingering emotions/thoughts and decide to let them go.
If you skip this step, you will see that you will tend to relax any way due to the entrainment, but you will never reach the depths that are possible if you consciously relax the body and mind.
- Listen to the track
I know that most vendors do not necessarily recommend this, but I found listening to the track greatly enhances the experience. At least subjectively. I off course have no idea what the long term implications are, but when I loose my focus on the sound, it is like not meditating. I then do not have the impression of being in an altered state (I know this might also be very subjective, but that is my experience).
When I do focus on the track, I can go very deep. More deep than with any other method I tried.
- Try to not fall asleep
This tip is actually the continuation of the previous one because as you fall asleep, you are not concentrated on the music, obviously 
I admit that not falling asleep can be tricky. These tracks take you to brainwave frequencies that you only reach while deeply asleep. And now you need to stay awake. But this is just the point of meditation: to reach them consciously. That is where the real benefit lies. If it would benefit you when you were asleep, you would not need meditation. You sleep enough every night. The added advantage is to reach them consciously.
- Do not mix practices
This is an error I made when starting with brainwave meditation. I told myself that since the track would anyway take me too the right frequency, I could as well add a practice or two. Like mantras or affirmations.
The truth is that each meditation practice has its own optimal brainwave frequency. And if your practice’s frequency does not math the one from the entrainment track, you will have competing frequencies. Often resulting in nothing at all. Best to just listen to the track, which in itself is already a concentration practice.
- Open your eyes and get up slowly .
Like in real meditation, after the session is finished, slowly open your eyes and look around in awe. You will see how everything changed. Do not rush to your daily activities or you will loose part of the benefits. Try to take you meditation with you when you stop.
Conclusion
Brainwave meditation is a lot like regular meditation. So the same techniques to improve the experience also apply here. But now you have the added advantage of technology helping you.
Most of these tip were found during me listening to a track called ‘Christ Consciousness‘.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Full Feed RSS
That’s a really interesting concept I hadn’t thought of before! Is it like listening to a tape with subliminal messages?
Hi!
I am guessing that when you are speaking about ‘the certain way’ you are referring to the masterkey system.
This is a great blog! I have an online bookclub where we discuss books that have inspired us and I would like to do ‘The Master Key System’ in the future.
This week we have been discussing the brain and would be really interested to hear your take on it and brainwave meditation. You would be welcome to link back to your blog.
You can find a widget to us under the welcome message on my blog.
Hope to see you there!
Julieanne
@ Chelle: no, there are no subliminal messages. it is just an entrainment track. So your brainwaves are adjusting themselves automatically to a frequency and do so in an harmonious way.
@ Julieanne : the certain way is from Wallace D. Wattles. He suggests to do things with flair, certain of success. I started re-reading ‘the master key system’. I think the approach is really great.
is it cool if we add in a 6th step, one about getting a massage during the process
Excellent suggestions. (I hadn’t thought of focusing on the sound.)I do fall asleep if I lie down, so I always sit when listing to meditation (entrainment) CD’s.
Thanks, Tom
I have tried the muscle relaxation technique before but not as a part of meditation. I don’t think that I have ever taken meditation to the extremes that you propose here.
How long should one of these sessions last?
thank you for the tips.. very helpful for me
@Tom : yes, I did not do that in the beginning either, but it improves the session a lot when you do.
@sire: relaxing the muscles should not take longer than a couple of minutes. Usually, it takes 8-10 minutes to get fully entrainend to the correct frequency, and you should stay there for 10-20 minutes.
But: relaxation should always be the first step in meditation. All text books agree on that.
Oh, I’m not arguing with you, I just wish I could take the time.
@sire: then I misunderstood it. I also skipped this step when I started meditation because I wanted to get to the real exercise. Until I understood that it was the first step of meditation and that skipping it was slowing down my progress.
I really can’t see total meditation happening without the precursor of muscle relaxation. I had problems at first with falling asleep also, which is why I had to start sitting during meditation exercises. So you really think the tracks are better than visualization or should they be used in alternate sessions?
Well, the tracks force your brainwaves into the meditation frequencies, so it is a lot easier to achieve meditation. I think it is better to alternate, yes. The whole point of meditation is to do just one thing. So Better not mix practices.
I have a hard time with meditation. My mind just isn’t relaxed enough and I always think about 2 different things at once. I’ll try this method of yours, maybe I’ll make some progress. To one train thought, at least
My ADD is too bad to meditate!! I can never clear my restless mind!
I have had some sleep problems this year and have found that when I do meditation before bed, concentrating on specific areas of my body so that I am completely relaxed, I sleep so much better!
Never try this before but it totally make sense all those steps you mention so as to get the best of a meditation session. Thanks for giving us this points to work.
Why does meditation require a single focus?
Very useful tips to get out most of meditation indeed. I will have to practice some of them because i am sure that they can help a lot to achieve best meditation. Thanks for the share.
@ Nina & Rich: the brainwave meditation tracks will help you with the restless mind. It takes far less effort that way.
@ Richard : I never go to sleep without properly relaxing my muscles since I know about these techniques. Sleep becomes so much more restorative when you do.
@ M: thanks for the nice words. It is not a lot of steps. I usually complete the preliminaries within 2 minutes. Leaving 28 minutes for the meditation
@ Kathleen: the goal is to train the mind so that one can focus on the present moment. In this way you can always chooses to have a happy thought. And just let the negative thoughts slip by. That is the real power of all these techniques: the choice to live happy
@ Kathering: They worked wonders for me. Come back and tell us if they also worked for you.
I know the only tip for you during meditation - it’s a concentration on what you want at this moment
Is this anything like NPL? I’ve used NLP before and I made fast progress!
@ ion: That is indeed a concentration practice I sometimes use. However, to train the mind further, you need to be able to concentrate on whatever you decide. This has the advantage of bringing spiritual peace.
@ tony: No, it is not like NLP. This really alters your brainwave patterns. NLP does not.
I am looking for some idea and stumble upon your posting
decide to wish you Thanks. Eugene
Very interesting. Definitely new to me. I’ve never done much meditating but this is something I could try.
I have not done much meditation but the concept is interesting.
Meditation is a mental discipline by which one attempts to get beyond the conditioned “thinking” mind into a deeper state of relaxation. Nice tips.Thanks for sharing.
Great post, you taught me a few things. Thanks!
The worse thing is the waking up. Is so difficult for me and sometimes I get a little dizzy.
This Blog reminds me the reason I like bloging so much, the interaction is very important with readers and you guys have it right. Looks great too, will be back for more posts, David the mover. : - )
I have purchased one of these tracks. Instead of doing any mixing, what I ended up with is first listening to the track and paying as much attention to it as possible. Then immediately after, I use my regular meditation and this seems to work really well for me.
Do you have any tracks that you suggest? I’ve seen some software that will supposedly generate these tracks (although it’s marketed more for relaxation), but for the life of me, I can’t track down the page.
It’s so tough from me to meditate. I always struggle with walking the line between relaxing and falling asleep. I guess it’s because I allow myself so little downtime.
Deep Meditation Will Lower My Stress Level.keep it up.
I use brainwave entrainment almost daily for creativity. I get a nice rush of ideas with a pretty good energy boost.
The thing with me is finding recordings that aren’t too stimulating as they make me so nauseated.
Well, this post is interesting, but I have no idea about meditation at all
it relaxes your mind overall
My ADD is too bad to meditate!! I can never clear my restless mind
I also heard the slogen of “meditate deeper than a Zen monk”. I haven’t tried Brianwave meditation myself. Sound worth trying.
I just do the “regular” Meditation, focusing on breathing.
I use this method of meditation to help play Halo. I know it may sound weird, but when i get focused on the music, the game slows down, and i can really dominate.
This post is great timing for me. I just got turned on to meditation about a month ago and it’s doing wonders for me.
Looking forward to implementing this technique - thanks.
I use to practice Transcendental Meditation years ago a great stress reliever!
I’ll have to give this a go.
Hmmm.. interesting. I haven’t tried anything like this except just plain relaxing my muscles and deep breathing to calm down my nerves. But I’m intrigued and I might look further into this and maybe give it a try.
the power of letting it all go. let it gone by the flow. and let the Ultimate Being absorb our mindfulness wish..
I don’t know if it’s my brain or just my attitude, but although I’ve tried I’ve never been able to achieve this kind of mental state.
hi,
Great tips for meditation. Concentration is a major thing but not the only thing to consider..really nice post thank you for sharing the great information, very useful.. I hope you will continue sharing the info. in future also..
That are really nice tips for the meditation… You may suggest some other tips also..
Nice post..
Thanks for this tip and it is really very useful.
Really it is great information and thanks for sharing it.
I would really be interested in hearing more about your meditation sessions. I have lots of stress related issues that I am continually told that I need to calm down to control.
I have considered meditation but this is just overwhelming to my go, go, go mentality that I have always had.
I have had some sleep problems this year and have found that when I do meditation before bed, concentrating on specific areas of my body so that I am completely relaxed, I sleep so much better!
I’ve been using meditation and I can’t beleive the positive effect it has on my life, my family and busienss colleagues can’t beleive the changes - all for the better.
I wish I’d discovered meditation earlier, I now feel at one with my self.
Just found this post. I’m in total agreement.
I haven’t practiced such type of brainwave meditation. I think that is similer to meditation, usually while doing meditation i am having a feel of deep sleeping what’s the reason for that.