Running Head: HOW BINAURIAL BEATS CAN HELP

How Binaural Beats Can Help Students Write

Justin Mays
Nevada State College

HOW BINAURAL BEATS CAN HELP

Abstract

This research paper was conducted to better understand the effects of using binaural beats
to help students with stress levels and boost creativity. The forms of evidence used are
survey reports and a creative writing task when using the beats and when not as well as
other researchers findings to prove that binaural beats should be part of the learning
process if a student wants to safely manage their stress and raise their creativity. Binaural
beats are a natural reaction that happens in the brain when two similar sound frequencies
are played in both ears that is shown to have many positive affects on the learning and
writing process.

HOW BINAURAL BEATS CAN HELP

How Binaural Beats Can Help Write

Writing has been and will most likely always be an integral part of the learning
process. Throughout the educational career of students they are asked to write many
papers and deal with deadlines for those papers, which leads to stress and frustration.
There are many ways to cope with that stress however this paper will concentrate on the
use of binaural beats and their effect on the writing process.
Students should integrate binaural beats into their process of writing because they
have many positive effects that connect with the writing centers of the brain. Binaural
beats are created in the brain by using similar sound frequencies played in both ears. The
use of this sound format is shown to lower stress levels and boost creativity, which is
something all students need help with.
When students are asked to write a paper there are a few things that happen inside
the brain that begin to hinder the writing process. The set of events may happen
differently for each student however they are very similar over all. The ability to
understand the topic and be able to translate in their own words and transfer it down to
paper is both an art and a science. Students are offered many avenues of help such as
tutors, workshops and writing centers just to name a few, and often are able to improve
their writing skills within their range of necessary knowledge. All of this help
concentrates on formatting, research and time management but does not take into
consideration the stress levels of the student nor how creative they may be. Binaural beats
are the right tool for the job of dealing with the stress and creativeness of the student.
With the research that has already been conducted and the experiments that I have
conducted there is a pretty clear picture of how useful the beats can be. People have

HOW BINAURAL BEATS CAN HELP

found ways of dealing with stress over the many years that we have existed and it is
understood that meditation is one of most useful and easy ways of coping with the dayto-day stresses we face. An experiment was conducted in 2011 titled A Quantitative
Electroencephalographic Study of Meditation and Binaural Beat Entrainment by
Lavallee, Koren, & Persinger. This experiment consisted of having seasoned and novice
meditation enthusiasts listen to the beats and then describe their experience. Both sets of
participants listened to the same sounds for the same length of time and had very
different outcomes. When the researchers interviewed the seasoned enthusiasts about
their experience they expressed that there was not a noticeable change to their session
however, for the novice enthusiasts it was a very different story. The novice group
explained that they felt feeling waves of energy, blissful experiences and connections
with the universe. (Christina, et al., 2011)(pg 351). The ability to clear your head and
allow the stress to drain from your mind is one of the main points of meditation. The
seasoned meditators trained for many years to achieve this effect. Binaural beats are like
a shortcut to clearing the mind and allowing the peace and calm to flow over you. Once a
students mind is clear and free from stress they will be able to concentrate more
efficiently and can stay on task for longer. Being able to work faster will help the student
meet dead lines on a more regular basis thus lowering the stress level even more. When a
student needs to produce a paper to be written a student could work extremely fast
however if they are not creative the paper may lack in other areas like subject, context
and being able to translate the information in their own words. There have been a few
research projects that look into binaural beats as a form of creative muse. One study that
explains this factor is research conducted by Reedijk, Bolders & Hommel in 2013 titled

HOW BINAURAL BEATS CAN HELP

The impact of binaural beats on creativity in their paper they state that They can be
effective in enhancing brainstorm-like creative thinking in individuals with low striatal
dopamine levels although this concentrates on people with low dopamine levels it is
clear that binaural beats can help the writing process. The science behind binaural beats is
easy to understand because it is a function of the brain that happens naturally when the
different frequencies are played.
As students are stressing out trying to cram information in their minds and then
reproduce it they are met with a few chances to use their time wisely. Binaural beats are
simply sounds that once they enter the brain they trick the brain into making an internal
sound that is slightly off set from the other sounds. According to the Monroe Institute
binaural beats are The sensation of auditory binaural beats occurs when two coherent
sounds of nearly similar frequencies are presented one to each ear with stereo headphones
or speakers. The brain integrates the two signals, producing a sensation of a third sound
called the binaural beat. For example, if a frequency of 100 Hz is played in one ear and
107 Hz is played in the other ear, a binaural beat of 7 Hz is created by the brain. Brain
waves match or follow the binaural beat. If the binaural beat is 7 Hz, an increase in
brain waves of 7 Hz occurs. (Monroeinstitute.org (2014). Once the beats are played the
brain neurologically sends them to the reticular area that makes the neurotransmitters
start to change up the brainwaves to a more calm and creative state. This calm state is
where it is best to begin forming ideas and start the writing process. There is an array of
other uses for binaural beats like sleep and even outer body experiences but that is up to
the user to venture in those areas. Throughout the research that I conducted there was a
clear affect of the beats.

HOW BINAURAL BEATS CAN HELP

The first form of information gathering that was creativity test where the subject
wrote a haiku after a 20-minute meditation session. The next day the same subject was
asked to use the beats for a 20-minute session and write a second haiku. Both of the
poems were sent to the language professor at a private school in Pasadena CA. Both
poems are good but the second one was clearly deeper then the first and seemed well
thought out (Peacher-hall,(2014).
The poems are shown below.
The first one with out using the beats:
My cat is so soft
She is warm and purrs a lot
She makes me happy
The second one with using the beats:
The ocean is deep
It hides my soul down below
Dive deep to find the truth

The second form of data collection used for this paper was a survey that was sent out to a
large group of people who were or are students at this time. The graphs below show
explain my finding from the survey that was sent out.
First question: Do you know what binaural beats are?

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The second question: Have you ever used binaural beats to help with writing?

The third question: What kind of sound do you write in?

HOW BINAURAL BEATS CAN HELP

The forth question: If you found out that binaural beats could help you lower stress levels
and help you be more creative would you use them?

Although the survey results do not show that students are using binaural beats it does
show that if they had access to the beats they would use them with their writing process.
A lot more research needs to be done on this subject of binaural beats however
from the research that I have conducted I believe that adding the practice of using
binaural beats to assist students with their writing process there would be a smooth
increase in the quality of their papers and articles. Students are met with challenges every
day that they must accomplish before a specific date, the use of meditation combined
with binaural beats should allow the student to lower their level of stress and become
more creative thus moving along their educational career path at an increased rate. I
believe that if writing centers and workshops utilized the binaural beat tool it would help
the students feel more in control and confident, thus they will produce writings at a
higher quality at a faster rate. Being able to actively grow in a positive way is something

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students need and if binaural beats can help with that journey then there would be a
acceleration of well rounded and stress free students who will get higher grades and be
able to leave college with the proper sets of skills they are going to need in their career
field.
During my research for this paper I did come across a few articles that explained
that binaural beats were basically useless and were acting as a placebo effect. One paper
even said that using the beats will mix up the brain waves and cause the user to lose their
mind and become a bumbling worthless person who would fail at life. There is always
going to be someone who believes a completely different way then others do but the best
thing to do is just let them tell you what they have to say and then just move on. Some
research I found expressed that the effect of the binaural beats, because they mess with
your dopamine production, can make the user suicidal and have thought of violence. This
idea that sound waves change your whole way of life and cause the user to suffer just
seems a little far-fetched however the beats do interact with the dopamine producing and
receiving areas in the brain and that is a very sensitive part of out daily existence but it is
just hard to believe that sound waves can do that much just does not have enough solid
research to back it up to take it seriously.

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HOW BINAURAL BEATS CAN HELP

References
Chuter, E. E., Allan, M. M., & Laws, D. D. (2007). A pilot study comparing reduction of
anxiety by binaural beat audio and patient-selected music in the pre-operative
period. Anaesthesia, 62(3), 310. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2044.2006.04944_12.x
Cruceanu, V.D., & Rotarescu, V . S (2013). Alpha brianwave enterainmrnt as a cognitive
performance activator. Cognitie, Creier, Comportament/Cognition, Brain,
Goodin, P., Ciorciari, J., Baker, K., Carrey, A., Harper, M., & Kaufman, J. (2012). A
High-Density EEG Investigation into Steady State Binaural Beat
Stimulation. Plos ONE, 7(4), 1-8. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0034789
Lavallee, C. F., Koren, S. A., & Persinger, M. A. (2011). A Quantitative
Electroencephalographic Study of Meditation and Binaural Beat
Entrainment. Journal Of Alternative & Complementary Medicine, 17(4), 351-355.
doi:10.1089/acm.2009.0691
Padmanabhan, R. R., Hildreth, A. J., & Laws, D. D. (2005). A prospective, randomised,
controlled study examining binaural beat audio and pre-operative anxiety in
patients undergoing general anaesthesia for day case surgery.Anaesthesia, 60(9),
874-877. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2044.2005.04287.x
Peacher-Hall, D (2014,November 23) is there a difference between the two haiku's
[Interview]. Retrieved November 23,2014 from personal email.
Reedijk, S., Bolders, A., & Hommel, B. (2013, November 14). The impact of binaural
beats on creativity. Retrieved November 23, 2014, from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3827550/

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What are Binaural Beats? (n.d.). Retrieved November 23, 2014, from
http://www.monroeinstitute.org/resources/what-are-binaural-beats

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