Thursday, July 30, 2020

Post #3- Isochronic Tones and Binaural Beats: Are They For Real?

As a person who has ADHD that sometimes makes it hard to sleep, I ended up resorting to YouTube for help keeping my mind calm. The results for sleep music frequently lead to isochronic tones or binaural beats, two things that I had never heard of, but it spiked my curiosity, possibly because they used such scientific names. For about two months (before this class occurred, evidently), I listened to these beats, and in fact, it did help me sleep. Many nights I would turn on the music, put my phone under my pillow, and be asleep within minutes. 
But was this because of the music itself, or just a simple placebo effect? According to an article I read by Healthline, these tones supposedly work because they make your brain align with certain wavelengths that make you feel calmer, or make your sleep deeper. The studies conducted seem to use heuristic thought to come to a conclusion, using groups of less than thirty people and making broad statements about the findings of the research. The Law of Small Numbers takes a hold here for sure. It seemed to have worked for me, but perhaps that was because the music was calming to begin with. 
Isochronic Tones: The Young Cousin of Binaural Beats | Gaia

1 comment:

  1. I found your post very interesting and I agree that I also fell for the fancy scientific words used. SOmetimes when something sounds scientific or "credible" we can immediately check off that it can be a reputable source. I have trouble sleeping at night and also have a sensitivity to caffeine sometimes. I think people often neglect sleep and it is important for daily function. I could only imagine how much of a struggle it can be going to bed at night and having things racing around in your mind. Whether this is a placebo effect or not I guess the only thing people can do is continue to study more about it.

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