[ Boosting your immunity and improving your sleep with audio visual entrainment || Slow brainwave stimulation effect on immunity || What happen during sleep that effects immunity || How to boost immunity with brainwave entrainment ]
Sleep and immune/health function are inseparable. In fact outside of air and water, a lack of sleep is the most likely thing to lead to serious health issues or death.
And it’s now of no surprise to doctors and scientists that improper sleep patterns often go hand in hand with not only physical illness, but also such mental decline as dementia and Alzheimer’s. These are two of the most common age related challenges of our time.
Ongoing research to find solutions to these issues are on the increase as medical science improves our physical age capability. The realisation of course, is that immunity is not just physical. In fact the brain indeed has it’s own immune system.
In particular, slow wave brain activity is often lacking in people with sleeping problems and this is the level of sleep where toxic cleaning, growth hormone production, memory consolidation and tissue repair all take place.
Detox your brain as you sleep >>
So it makes sense that without this deep slow wave activity most often experienced during non-REM sleep, that our health may be compromised. And immunity is no exception to this.
Slow brain wave stimulation boosts immunity
Studies using a closed loop auditory stimulation of slow wave brain oscillations have shown promise for boosting the immune replenishing ability of deep Delta wave sleep.
By adding a slow wave external stimulus of pulsing pink noise at a rate of about 1Hz or 1 cycle per second during the non-REM phase of sleep, scientists have shown that even in healthy young people the result is a lowering of stress related hormones and a raising of immunity boosting hormones. This is normally only effected by how deep and how long you sleep.
This particular form of external stimulation is often referred to as brainwave entrainment, audio visual entrainment or audio visual stimulation.
In this case auditory stimulation / entrainment is used as a subtle pink noise so as to not interfere with the sleep pattern of the people in the experiment.
What happens during sleep that effects our immunity and health
When we fall asleep we go through stages of sleep depth throughout the night that are characterised by brain activity levels measured in frequency bands known as Hertz (Hz) or brain waves.
One of those stages is known as Non-REM sleep and this is the deepest and most restorative stage of sleep for both mind and body. Non-REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep has typically been classified as non dreaming sleep.
This is not entirely true although dream activity in this state is less prominent and the body in particular at this stage of sleep is very still. In some instances when people awake from, or become conscious in this stage of sleep.., they will report feeling like they are paralysed. This is a normal function of the body shutting down to heal and restore.
Slow wave sleep
Brain activity in this stage is known as Delta and/or sometimes Epsilon and is characterised by less than 4Hz brain activity with a slow wave reading typically of about 1Hz or less.
Research shows that at this level of brain activity, a number of chemicals including growth hormone, aldosterone and prolactin are produced. These are involved with efficient immune responses and cellular repair and growth, and make their way via the bloodstream to cells in both the brain and body.
There are even cells in the brain called microglia who’s task is neuronal immune support.
More on microglia brain immune cells >>
Research also shows that stimulation at this Delta level can increase this immune effect.
In fact the study below tested whether AVE stimulation in the range of 1-3hz and 9-13Hz frequencies stimulated T-cell immunity increases in people.
The results show that after Audio visual entrainment, anxiety decreased and concentrations of Leukocytes and Lymphocytes (immune response chemicals) increased. They did so in accordance with the level of excitation threshold of each individual.
T-cell immunity stimulation article >>
As people age or develop sleep disorders such as insomnia this level of sleep is often compromised and therefore immunity is lowered and illness becomes harder to overcome.
Medication and sleeping tablets are relatively ineffective long term at promoting this deep level of sleep as they work to ‘knock you out’ rather than encourage a certain level of brain activity and neuro-chemical balance.
This is where a non invasive technique such as brainwave entrainment may be able to help.
How can I boost my immunity with audio visual brainwave entrainment
Using visual or auditory stimulation (or both), a persons brain can be influenced into following and matching the specific frequency chosen and held there to entrain the brain to that frequency.
In the same way that a regular practice of meditation builds on itself to produce lasting results.., so does brainwave entrainment practice.
In fact one of the most powerful uses for brainwave entrainment (visual in particular that appears to more effective than auditory) is to create deep trance/meditation states and rest states. And it can do so in minutes and not just after years of practice.
Knowing that a specific frequency or pattern of frequencies is present in the brain during a desired state, you can choose to experience more of those patterns at will.
Although the study linked below uses a feedback loop between EEG and the stimulation to initiate the right timing for the process to begin.., an approximation can be made and used even without this feedback.
On average 45 minutes after falling asleep is when a person first enters this deep slow wave stage of brain activity.
Timed right, you can mimic the results in this study.
In the case of the roXiva RX1, the internal timer can turn on and play a session with just the same pink noise as the study. And it can do so with or without light pulses which for most people might wake them up or done too often result in changes to the circadian rhythm (body clock).
Some brainwave entrainment device owners have even been known to play a whole nights worth of up and down levels of sleep in line with normal values measured from thousands of healthy people with normal sleep patterns.
Boost your immunity and improve your sleep during the day
You don’t have to replicate the study where stimulation as done during sleep to get the benefit though.
As with a regular meditation practice (which can help you keep your immune responses strong also).., practising a skill at ANY time will usually with rare exception translate to other times too. In fact you can encourage this by using creative visualisation skills such as the NLP idea of future pacing and conditioning responses like anchoring (see ‘feel good consistently’ link below).
And boosting immunity whether it be during sleep or while you are awake is still boosting immunity.
When it comes to brainwave entrainment most people do use it during the day.
Relaxing during the day and playing a session designed to get you into deep Delta slow waves will not only give you the benefits of that brain state right then.., but will likely result in it being easier for you to get into that state in bed as well.
Combine a session of deep Delta with visualising doing it successfully again in the future (future pacing) and creating a type of ritual each time (anchoring), and you will dramatically increase your chances of gaining the maximum benefit of this immune boost.
If you have a chance to try a light and sound session of deep Delta I highly recommend it.
Auditory stimulation improves sleep and immune support >>
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