Brainwave Entrainment

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ike the search for instant enlightenment, the quest for quick relaxation from executive stress has led to some pretty exotic formulas. Over the past few decades, the three-martini lunch has given way to stress management seminars, biofeedback, flotation tanks, even Transcendental Meditation. But these methods, for various reasons, have never exactly meshed with executive life. Recently, though, a number of odd-looking gadgets have started turning up in the pages of mail-order catalogues like Hammacher Schlemmer and the Sharper Image. Dark glasses with flashing lights and headphones attached to consoles with numbered buttons promise to "give your brain a tune-up," or "guide your mind into a state of deep relaxation, enhancing creativity, accelerating learning and improving levels of concentration."

One ad even guarantees, with a subtlety level appropriate for Ginsu knives: "In 28 Minutes You'll Be Meditating Like A Zen Monk!" Overheated ad copy aside, though, the things seem to be fairly flying off the shelves, proving, for example, to be one of the Sharper Image's best-selling items both mail order and in-store. All this caught our attention, to be sure. It also made us wonder if these "sound and light machines"—which, after all, look like something Mr. Spock might wear on the deck of the Enterprise—really work, or if they're just the latest version of quad stereo. After hearing some of the remarkable claims made by their manufacttirers, including increased l.Q. and cures for insomnia, I set out to sample the current hardware and interview executives and professionals who were using these devices. T h e results are—dare I say.?—enlightening.

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First stop on my journey as psychological Barron Reinach, a 37-year-old commodities trader who explorer/guinea pig was the SoHo office of Synchro lives on Central Park West in Manhattan. After failing to Energize, one ofthe numerous "brain spas" that have find relief from the anxiety generated by ten years of been creeping onto the American urban landscape over working the floor of the New York Futures and American the last few years. The idea of a health club for the mind, Commodities Exchanges (he's even tried meditation, a place to go for mental aerobics to sharpen and ultimate- among other things), Reinach visited Synchro Energize ly relax your brain, seems perfect for the '90s. But com- in SoHo. There he put on goggles and headphones just pared to other such spas I'd read about. Synchro Ener- like the ones I had tried. "An hour of Synchro-Energizer gize was a decidedly low-tech-looking room filled with and I was in seventh heaven," he recalls. "The hour loftbeds, recliners and one large waterbed. I was told to seemed to go by in six or seven minutes. The quiet of meditation is too much for me. lie down, place a pair of goggles But this wasn't quiet. It was movover my eyes and put on heading and dramatic." phones. T h e n I was asked to T h a t was several years ago, choose the kind of music I'd and Reinach, who refers to the like: classical, jazz, rock, or New experience as "meditation for the Age. I opted for Brahms. lazy," returns to Synchro-EnerLying back on the waterlsed, I gize occasionally for a recharge. closed my eyes and began watch"It's not an act of discipline," he ing one of the most astonishing says. "It's an act of true enjoylight displays I'd ever seen. This ment. It's as absorbing as any put Fantasia and the last reel of movie, yet when I get up I feel 2001 to shame. Hundreds of well-rested, and my anxiety levswirling, pulsing and alternating els are down." patterns rich in blues, reds and Still, trekking down to SoHo yellows took the shape of for a mind-fix can be inconvemedieval rose windows, whirling nient. And since the portable mándalas. Op Art. I could hear devices—the kind you can use at tones beeping in synch with the home whenever you like—have light patterns, all but drowned been selling so briskly, I decided out by a Brahms piano sonata to talk to somebody who uses one that had never sounded better. regularly. Ron Giannoni, general Part way through, the lights manager and vice president of a began flashing at a much faster Chevrolet dealership near San rate, an exhilarating effect that I Jose, Calif., says he is sold on a didn't want to stop. But the device called the IM-1. After 28 woman who was programming We lose up to 25 percent of years in auto sales, Giannoni was the Synchro-Energizer from a our intelligence under high stress. put in charge of a dealership, and console in the next room moved taking responsibility for the on to a slower, more deliberate pattern. As a bright yellow light filled my field of vision, a livelihood of 55 employees was keeping him up nights. silly grin involuntarily enveloped my face. Sure, this was He tried the standard relaxation techniques—exercise, fun, but was it relaxing? I felt more excited than anything massage, a few Scotches—without much success. One else. Yet when I emerged 45 minutes later, I noticed that day, after suffering through what he calls "the worst masmy speaking voice was much slower and calmer. And sage I'd ever had," Giannoni noticed a sign on a nearby when I left the Synchro Energize salon on Broadway, I office offering stress reduction, and he walked in. The found myself strolling rather than rushing to my next office belonged to psychologist Jill Ammon-Wexler, who appointment. suggested treatment involving high-tech gizmos with I later discovered that the man behind the Synchro- names like Lumatron and Mind's Eye Energizer, one Denis Gorges, is shrouded in some conGianonni eventually settled on the IM-1. Donning a troversy. And although his salon-size Synchro-Energizer pair of customized wraparound sunglasses and a set of gets high marks from other users, his portable model, headphones hooked up to a small, Walkman-size console called the Relaxman, is more expensive and less versatile with an array of numbered buttons, he lay back and tton than most of the competition. Clearly, I needed to get closed his eyes. As Ammon-Wexler pre- \ one of the firsthand opinions from business people who had been buttons, Gianonni began to have an e , , ience that using these machines for a while. sounded similar to my baptism-by-Syn< : -Energizer. One of the most striking stories I heard came from .gs, I was "The first time I used one of these p 104 FORBES

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extremely uptight—very, very tense," he recalls. "I lay each day in the alpha or theta range is enormously helpthere for what seemed like 10 or 15 minutes, although 30 ful for the mind and body. This type of deep relaxation or 40 minutes had passed. And when I got up, I felt like tends to lower blood pressure, reduce certain risks of I'd just slept for eight hours. I was completely rejuvenat- heart disease, promote clearer and more creative thinked, and felt like I could go whip the world." ing and better sleep patterns, and lessen reliance on coffee, alcohol and prescription drugs. Corporations are beginning to see the possibilities, But the more stress you're under, the less likely you'll too. The customer services department of Pacific CJas & Electric in San Francisco makes Sychro-Energizers avail- be to reach and remain in these states—or to perform able to employees during their lunch breaks, and the well in general. According to Ammon-Wexler, we lose employees love it. "It was a little bizarre-looking," man- up to 25% of our intelligence under high stress. "Ever ager Bob Mole says of his first try to find your car keys when glimpse of the machine. "Adults you're in a hurry.?" she asks. "Or have a 'well, this is silly' attiyour wallet.?" tude," he adds with a laugh. Researchers have also shown "But once you get the goggles on that major insights are more likeand relax, you really start to reap ly to take place when brainwaves the benefits. My anxiety over are mostly in alpha and theta. getting into it went away after Their lower frequency and higher the first session, because I found amplitude tend to "shake things it enjoyable and relaxing." up," which is why inventors like Maybe "enjoyable" is the key Edison got some of their best word, since the entertainment ideas following catnaps or in value of the machines (what dreams. But since it's not easy to Ammon-Wexler calls their summon up a revealing dream on "psychedelic toy" aspect) demand, the most effective entices users to stick with them method for entering these states long enough to achieve "definite has traditionally been the arduous reductions in pulse rate, blood path required by various kinds of pressure and things of that sort," meditation. Most executives, according to Mole. though, shy away from squeezing Clinical research tends to supin full-lotus chanting sessions port that claim, although the between board meetings and rachard scientific work—doublequetball. Even simplified, secular blind studies over a number of techniques like the "relaxation years—have yet to be completresponse" developed by Dr. Hered. Even some of the machines' bert Benson of Harvard Medical distributors have voiced reserva- I felt like I could go whip the world. School have proven elusive to tions. Volker Risto, president of many. And biofeedback requires Transformation Technologies of Panorama City, Calif., wiring your scalp with electrodes, which can leave your recently noted that their "modern applications as nirvana hair looking like Bart Simpson on a bad day. machines" have yet to be proven. "They are very useful for But recent evidence indicates that sound and light stress reduction, relaxation...and facilitating accelerated machines can get you into alpha and theta quickly, and learning," Risto said. "But I've been using these without tears. You don't even have to learn a mantra. machines for hundreds of hours and I have yet to see any The trick is thought to be "brainwave entrainment, or visions or revelations..." alrprir,n-rU A • i • by having it ^, ,,, , . . , altering the dominant brainwave vibrate SYmoatherirallv m Ukay, we 11 pass on the visions for now. But just how source Entn nmèn H do the devices do what they do.? We know that brainwave when shamans and n " d ' ' activity occurs in four major frequency ranges, from 0 to light and tnbadmlm rhythms 32-plus cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz). Although all and draw he minT H four sets of frequencies are active in the brain at any classi armusi"rom 1 Í given time, one set is typically dominant: beta (normal simil fLc io Todav th"e ' " waking consciousness), alpha (relaxed, creative states), concerti are T e d '! theta (the "twilight learning" stage, threshold to sleep), to enhaníl recall and delta (deep sleep or unconsciousness). Information And scipnri^r» about these brainwave states is still incomplete, but sci- can entrain"o ^ entists agree that spending at least some conscious time

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106 FORBES

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to learning new material or accepting the affirmations and advice offered by a huge range of self-improvement and learning tapes now on the market. Some doctors are even using the machines to help overcome substance abuse and reduce chronic pain. But without a large body of definitive scientific studies, how can we be sure? Gerry Steinberg, an M.D. who uses a variety of sound and light devices in his Massachusetts clinic for control of pain, admits "all the data aren't in yet." But, he adds, doctors often prescribe drugs and treatments that haven't yet gone through the scientific process of double-blind studies, relying instead on anecdotal information from patients and maybe a few controlled studies. "I don't think we have to wait," he says. "The machines do work." Dr. George Fuller von Bozzay of the Biofeedback Institute of San Francisco agrees, adding that it's less about entrainment than entrancement. "People get entranced by the patterns they see," Fuller von Bozzay says, "especially in certain frequencies above alpha that are entrancing enough to allow them to relax deeply." So is entrainment a prerequisite for relaxation.? "Brainwaves aren't everything," Dr. Brucato of MindWorld adds. "Think about it as a hypnotic process." Once the machines get you into a deeply relaxed state, positive suggestion, learning, creative thinking and healing are all facilitated. But Brucato is quick to add that these

machines are "an adjunct" to the healing process, "not Christ in a can or anything like that." (Because of FDA restrictions, manufacturers can't make specific medical claims. That hasn't stopped some of them from trying. A recent direct-mail ad for a set of relaxation-inducing subliminal tapes promises everything from "improvements in l.Q." to sensations "a hundred times more powerful than morphine." Now how much would you pay.?) Technicians are working to develop simplified devices that will be able to encode light and sound programs, music, and hypnotic suggestions on one standard audio cassette that you play on your Walkman, which plugs into a pair of goggles and headphones. Presto: you've got lights, beats, music, voices, and no bulky console. But according to Ammon-Wexler, the brain soon gets tired of the same program and stops entraining to it, so we'll still need machines that have a variety of preset programs plus the ability to create new ones. As we've already discovered with computers and VCRs, though, user-friendliness is next to godliness, making certain machines more attractive than others. So before you rush out and buy some instant relaxation, be sure to check out our sidebars carefully. most recent book is Through T h e L a b y r i n t h : T h e Search For Spiritual Transformation In Everyday Life (Viking). P E T E R OCCHIOGROSSO'S

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