Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina have conducted a pilot clinical study to determine whether using musical tones to balance brain activity can "reset" the brain in order to help insomniacs get a good night's sleep. The study was published online in the journalBrain and Behavior.
A release from the center quotes principal investigator Charles H. Tegeler, M.D. as saying, "The human brain is made up of the left and right hemispheres that work together as parallel processors. When a person undergoes trauma or a major stressor, their autonomic survival responses kick in and the brain can become unbalanced. If those imbalances persist, symptoms such as insomnia can result. Our study looked at a new technology that is intended to facilitate greater balance and harmony in brain frequencies."
The technology is called, high-resolution, relational, resonance-based, electroencephalic mirroring (HIRREM) or Brainwave Optimization. The non-invasive procedure uses a system that is designed to reflect the brain's frequencies back to itself using musical tones. Resonance between the musical tones and the electrical energy in a person's brain can bring balance to the two hemispheres of the brain.
The researchers found that the HIRREM group had a 10.3 point drop in the Insomnia Severity Index and clinically moved into a category of "no insomnia" or "sub-threshold insomnia".
